Despite what its proponents may want you to believe, the Protect Marriage Arizona Amendment isn't a gay issue.
In case you haven't heard by now, Protect Marriage Arizona, also known as Prop 107, is a voter initiative that masks itself as the amendment that will eliminate same-sex marriage in Arizona. It is going to be on the ballot for you to vote on this November.
This initiative was created by the Center for Arizona Policy, an ultra-socially conservative nonprofit organization, as a way to "protect marriage."
In actuality, same-sex marriage is already against Arizona law. The Arizona Revised Statutes already clearly states that "marriage between persons of the same sex is void and prohibited."
The Center for Arizona Policy's strategy is to convince Arizona voters that a vote for Prop 107 is a vote against same-sex marriage, when in reality voters will not be deciding for or against same-sex marriage at all.
Prop. 107 isn't changing the law, it's changing the language of the law to exclude any and all domestic-partner benefits. Both straight and gay couples take advantage of the benefits.
Most people don't realize that if the initiative becomes law, it will hurt far more straight people than it will gay people.
To give you the numbers, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, there were 118,196 unmarried couples, which totals 10.7 percent of all couples in the state.
And of those 118,196 people, only 12,000 were same-sex couples.
Therefore, about 10.2 percent of all unmarried couples in Arizona were same-sex couples in 2000. If you do the math, you can figure out that in 2000, roughly 90 percent of Arizona's unmarried couples were straight in and would be hurt by Prop 107.
Got that? This is a straight issue, not a gay one.
According to Arizona Together, a coalition formed to advocate against Prop 107, "over 100,000 Arizonans could lose their health-insurance benefits, hospital visitations, the power to make decisions for loved ones in the case of an emergency and inheritance rights if the amendment passes."
That doesn't sound like the Center for Arizona Policy is protecting much of anything. That sounds like harming a whole lot of innocent people, both gay and straight.
Arizona Together also says that "a large majority of Arizonans (68 percent) believes that removing the right of unmarried partners to visit each other in hospitals goes too far. Less than a third of Arizonans (30 percent) support taking health care benefits away from unmarried opposite-sex and same-sex partners.
"Eighty-five percent of Arizonans say they don't want religious and political extremists telling them how to live, and 61 percent believe that a radical fringe is trying to do just that."
This speaks for itself. For example, many senior citizens live together but choose not to get married to avoid losing their pensions. These couples would lose all of their benefits, as would other domestic partners, gay or straight.
The scariest part of this proposed amendment is that it could prohibit both gay and straight unmarried couples from filing domestic violence charges against each other, if need be.
The Center for Arizona Policy seems to want marriage to be defined under its own terms and guidelines, which isn't fair to anyone else. And the affect on straight unmarried couples isn't unintentional; the center has always insisted that people should not live together if they are not legally married.
They don't seem to care who they are hurting.
The radical agenda of the Center for Arizona Policy is not one that resonates with the majority of Arizonians. The people of Arizona believe in fairness and equality; they don't want to see anyone unfairly robbed of their benefits.
Do you want to be on the side of those with an extremist agenda that will harm hundreds of thousands of people?
The issue is not whether you're for or against gay marriage.
Prop 107 stands to needlessly hurt a lot of people, gay and straight.
Megan Wadding is a film junior, and can be reached at megan92986@hotmail.com
