Right-wing legislators in Harrisburg have introduced a discriminatory amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution that would deny legal protections to gay and lesbian families. The sponsors have openly said that it would ban civil unions as well as access to civil marriage.

The next few weeks are critical. Please contact your state representative and senator and urge them NOT to co-sponsor the amendment and to oppose it if it comes up for a vote. And please ask your friends and family in Pennsylvania to contact their state representatives and senators too. You can find out who your state representative and senator are by visiting www.legis.state.pa.us (top right corner of that website) or in the blue pages of the phone book.

UPDATE (3/2/06): Citizen action is having an effect. Since the House version was introduced, FOUR cosponsors have withdrawn (two Democrats, two Republicans) while only two have added their names to it. It's unusual for bills to lose multiple cosponsors. The Senate version is sponsored by only three of the 13 senators on the Senate committee where it is currently under consideration. However, several House and Senate members may push the amendment hoping it might save them in tough races in the May primary election. So we still need everyone opposed to the amendment to speak up!

If you live in Cumberland or York counties, we especially need you to contact your senator and representative – several legislators from those two counties have not signed on to the amendment and we want to keep it that way! Update – thanks to hearing from people in her district, Rep. Beverly Mackereth (R-Spring Grove/196th District) took her name off in February.

IMPORTANT TIP: While this is certainly an emotional issue, please be respectful when you call, e-mail or write your state representative and senator.

1. It's unnecessary and divisive. Pennsylvania already has a law that denies civil marriage for same-sex couples. As for claims that the marriage law is somehow under threat in Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court recently ruled in the Devlin case that Philadelphia's domestic-partnership registry was only legal because it was something less than and distinct from civil marriage. Pushing this constitutional amendment only has one purpose -- exploiting fear of a minority for possible political gain.

Magistrates in some cases are also refusing protection from abuse requests for assault victims "living as a spouse" because it conflicts with the marriage (amendment).

"Based on anecdotal evidence, it's deterring women from coming forward because if they file charges and the charges are dismissed, it's worse than before. The batterer can retaliate," said Mike Smalz, senior attorney with the Ohio State Legal Services Association, which does advocacy work and represents clients in civil cases, including domestic violence victims.

(Columbiana County Assistant Prosecutor John) Gamble said the prosecutor's office has had four or five cases ruled unconstitutional. Three are currently in appeals court, where Gamble said cases have poured in from all over the state.

In Michigan, groups are challenging domestic partner benefits for employees. Virginia's recently enacted amendment is so broad that it may interfere with the rights of all Virginians to create wills, medical directives, powers of attorney, child custody and property arrangements, and even joint bank accounts.

3. This unnecessary amendment will take time and energy away from important priorities such as property tax reform, raising the minimum wage, and improving the economy, education and health care in Pennsylvania -- things that help families. Legislators should think of themselves a little like doctors, who take an oath that says “first do no harm.”

More information is available below and from the Center for Lesbian & Gay Civil Rights (www.center4civilrights.org).

Excerpt from “Marriage battles continue across U.S.,” Lisa Keen, Philadelphia Gay News, Dec. 9, 2005:

In Ohio, where a more comprehensive constitutional ban was adopted by voters last year, a proponent of the measure promised it would not take away the health insurance from the domestic partners of state university employees. But, notes the Insurance Journal this week, that proponent is now pressing a lawsuit to use the constitutional amendment to do exactly that.

E.J. Graff, a resident scholar at Brandeis University's Women's Studies Research Center, says anti-gay activists are deliberately misrepresenting their ballot measures to voters.

“Here's what they'll tell you when they're trying to persuade voters to pass a one-man-one-woman marriage amendment: The amendment will merely put velvet ropes around the word 'marriage,' Graff writes. It won't be mean; it won't deprive lesbian and gay couples of job benefits; it won't close the door to other protections for same-sex couples and their families. But once the amendment passes, those same proponents will shout that any recognition whatsoever of a same-sex couple is an incursion into that sacred territory, marriage.” (emphasis added)

In Alaska, where voters approved a seemingly limited constitutional amendment in 1998 saying that, “To be valid or recognized in this State, a marriage may exist only between one man and one woman,” the amendment has been used to deny benefits to the domestic partners of same-sex employees of the state.

The Supreme Court of Alaska ruled Oct. 28, in ACLU vs. Anchorage, that the refusal of the state to provide the same benefits to the domestic partners of gay public employees as it provides to the spouses of married public employees violates the state constitution's guarantee of equal rights, opportunities and protection under the law.

Some key quotes from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's ruling in Devlin v. City of Philadelphia, December 2004 (you can read the entire decision here):

“However, in our view, the 'legal relationship' that the City has created is, in essence, merely a label that the City can use to identify individuals to whom it desires to confer certain, limited local benefits. Moreover, as long as those benefits are not benefits solely available to married (or formerly married) individuals pursuant to the Commonwealth's domestic relations laws, which the benefits here are not, it simply cannot be said that the defined relationship is an improper attempt to legislate in the area of 'marriage.'” (p. 14-15)

“In sum, given that the Legislation merely creates and defines the unmarried status of Life Partnership and gives Life Partners only very limited rights that do not even begin to mirror the extensive fabric of rights and obligations that the Commonwealth has afforded to married couples, we reject the Commonwealth Court's finding that the City exceeded its municipal powers by legislating in the preempted area of marriage.” (top of page 16)

(Does that sound like a court that's about to rule in favor of same-sex civil marriage?)

Are low marriage rates in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries somehow linked with the granting of marriage or marriage-like rights to same-sex couples?

Since July 1, 2000, when civil unions became legal in Vermont, more than 7,500 couples have united. Only 78 have been dissolved in court. (source: 365gay.com, Dec. 15, 2005) That's the equivalent of a 1 percent divorce rate. How are things going for opposite-sex couples? “Given the divorce rates of recent years, the risk of a marriage ending in divorce in the United States is close to 50 percent.” (source: State of Our Unions 2005, National Marriage Project)