vote next tuesday!
Mood: concerned
Posted on 2005-10-28 12:21:00
Tags: activism
Words: 111

For people that are registered to vote in Texas, there's an election next Tuesday (November 8). Please vote No on Proposition 2, which would not only ban gay marriage in the Texas Constitution, but prevent any "legal status identical or similar to marriage". So, clearly civil unions are not permitted, but perhaps even legal documents that would give djedi and I some rights associated with marriage (visitation rights in the hospital, next-of-kin type status, etc.)

This is a special election, so turnout will likely be low, which means that we do have a chance to reject this amendment!

You can go to friendsvote.org to find your precinct number and polling place.

10 comments

Comment from pfiddy:
2005-10-28T12:50:06+00:00
I overheard some people talking about this, and they were saying something like "maybe the amendment will get rejected because not enough people will vote since it's an off-year". That made me wonder if there is some law about how some minimum number of people have to have voted in an election in order for a constitutional amendment to pass, so it would almost be better not to vote at all...? Just wondering if you know anything about this, since you're probably better-versed than me in such things. If there is no such law then i will definitely go vote (=

Comment from onefishclappin:
2005-10-28T13:23:16+00:00
Ooo - that sounds like a great ploy, if it's *not* true. You spread the rumor "Don't vote, if there aren't enough votes then it can't pass" to discourage the "other side" from voting. I hope that's not the case, but my paranoid nature says it might be... there are certainly people who would go to any underhanded means to get this amendment passed.

Comment from wonderjess:
2005-10-28T13:40:25+00:00
there's no such provision...check out article 17 section 1 (that's so fun to say) of the Texas constitution...there's no minimum voting requirement...just like the US one. although there's a great story about that and why the ERA didn't pass, which you can read about in William Riker's book The Art of Political Manipulation (I just like saying the art of politicla manipulation). but even that was in the legislature, not sent to the people.

Comment from onefishclappin:
2005-10-28T13:50:05+00:00
Excellent! Our resident legal scholar says "Go Vote!"

While on the surface it seems to make sense to have a minimum voting requirement, I can see how in these days of <10% voter turnout that people could feel like they had to not vote or encourage not voting to enact their desired result in the polls. And in this particular instance, I am glad that we don't have it because it could keep people who don't support this amendment out of the polls, which wouldn't be a good thing.

Comment from wildrice13:
2005-10-28T13:55:41+00:00
Is that William T. Riker?

Comment from wonderjess:
2005-10-28T13:59:37+00:00
the one from UR, not the enterprise.

Comment from cifarelli:
2005-10-28T13:54:58+00:00
Isn't it still two Tuesdays away? I thought next Tuesday will be November 1. ;)

I've also read some scaremongering on the part of CONSERVATIVES to vote against the amendment because they fear that some activist judge might interpret "legal status identical or similar to marriage" to include marriages between a man and a woman as well (after all...."identical to marriage"), causing the amendment to make all marriage illegal. I somehow don't see that coming to pass, but if it gets conservatives to vote against the amendment, I'm all for it! ;)

Comment from onefishclappin:
2005-10-28T14:02:45+00:00
There is also talk of this being used to disallow "common law" or "informal" marriages. I think the main complaint is that this proposed amendment was poorly written compared to other states' proposed amendements. Personally, I wonder if making hetero couples question the legal benefits they recieve from marriage might help them understand why homo couples would want the same.

Comment from djedi:
2005-10-28T18:15:04+00:00
Yeah, I'm pretty sure judges could interpret it as including common law marriages of any sort - something that I think was somewhat intended by the "religious right" people involved. It would be sweet if some activist judge actually did look at the bill and say "ok, no more marriages then" just to teach congress a lesson about how to write decent bills (decent being clear and concise rather than right versus wrong).

Comment from gregstoll:
2005-10-28T15:12:51+00:00
Yup, it's November 8th. (it depends on your definition of "next Tuesday" :-P)

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