WASHINGTON (ABP) — While Americans are focused on whether Democrats will regain control of one or both chambers of Congress during the Nov. 7 elections, several other issues important to religious voters will appear on state ballots.
In eight states, voters will decide whether to amend their state's constitutions to ban same-sex marriage. In Missouri, voters will decide whether to amend the state's charter to protect embryonic stem-cell research and ban procreative human cloning. And in South Dakota, voters have a chance to overturn the nation's most restrictive abortion law, which legislators approved earlier this year.
The gay-marriage ballot issues have some social conservatives worried. A host of such amendments passed — with an average of about 70 percent of the vote — in the 2004 election. But this year, polls in a handful of states — Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota and Wisconsin — show the current marriage amendments facing a more difficult battle.
The situation in Colorado is particularly unique. There, the most recent polls show a narrow majority of likely voters in favor of the gay-marriage ban. But the same polls also show voters favoring a separate ballot measure that would create legally protected “domestic partnerships” for gay couples. The partnerships would provide many of the same rights and responsibilities as marriage.
Although it would seem that the two proposals cancel each other out, they are not legally exclusive of each other. The marriage ban, known as Amendment 43, would simply reserve the term “marriage” solely for heterosexual couples. The domestic-partnership proposal, known as Referendum I, provides marriage-like rights to gay couples, but explicitly states that the arrangement “is not a marriage, which consists of the union of one man and one woman.”
A Denver Post poll released Oct. 30 showed that 51 percent of respondents favored Amendment 43, while 43 percent opposed it. Meanwhile, 47 percent of respondents said they would vote for Referendum I, while 42 said they opposed it.
Denver's other daily newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, has endorsed both proposals, saying the state should have the right to protect the legal definition of marriage while simultaneously offering protections to gay couples and their children. In an Oct. 6 editorial, the paper said same-sex couples “do face unnecessary obstacles and disadvantages” in obtaining rights that married couples enjoy in areas such as inheritance, child custody and medical decisions.
But Focus on the Family, the prominent national conservative group based in Colorado Springs, has bought television advertisements around the state calling on voters to support the gay-marriage ban but oppose Referendum I, calling it “counterfeit marriage.”
In Wisconsin, a poll released Oct. 30 shows support for that state's gay-marriage ban to be razor-thin. The University of Wisconsin survey showed 50 percent of likely voters in favor of the ban — which would also ban domestic-partnerships — and 46 percent opposed. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points, meaning it shows amendment opponents and supporters in a statistical dead heat.
In Arizona, the proposed marriage amendment also would ban domestic partnerships and prevent local government agencies from extending employee-partner benefits to same-sex couples. Several of the state's most prominent newspapers have editorialized against it, and recent polls also show the state's voters evenly divided over the issue.
Gay-marriage bans proposed in Idaho, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia are likely to win.
In South Dakota, voters will cast ballots on two of the nation's most divisive social issues — abortion rights and gay rights. An Oct. 29 poll, commissioned by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper and conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling, showed 52 percent of voters supporting a repeal of a new state law that bans almost all abortions. Only 42 percent opposed repealing the law, with 6 percent of likely voters undecided.
The law, which Gov. Mike Rounds (R) signed into law in March, is the nation's most sweeping abortion ban. It bans all abortions, including those resulting from rape or incest, except for those where carrying the baby to term endangers the mother's life. It has not taken effect because it runs contrary to the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide.
The question of when life begins also is playing a major role in Missouri's ballot initiative on embryonic stem-cell research. The amendment would protect any such research done within the state's boundaries.
Most mainstream scientists believe such research shows significant potential for treating several degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's. But some conservative Christian groups — in particular, the Roman Catholic Church and some of the nation's most prominent evangelicals — have opposed such research because the embryos used are destroyed in the process of extracting the stem cells.
However, proponents argue, such extraction is only done on surplus embryos left over from fertility treatments. Such embryos are routinely frozen and later destroyed by fertility clinics.
Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt angered many of his fellow Republicans and evangelicals by supporting the measure. Meanwhile, the conservative-dominated Missouri Baptist Convention has actively campaigned against the measure. It joined a lawsuit over the ballot proposal's language and produced a DVD and other materials designed to mobilize voters against the measure.
“[L]ike abortion, the conviction of Scripture is clear…. Life is life and only God can give it!” reads one line from the convention's publications on the issue. “The battle over embryonic stem cells and human cloning is a large task that demands Christians to pray and act with boldness and clarity.”
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