Arizona Voters, Please Pay Close Attention

As the newest version of the no-gay-marriage state constitutional amendment waits for enough right-wing douchebags to be present in the Arizona statehouse at one time to be appended to a completely unrelated bill and passed over to the senate, please refresh your memory of what the screw-the-gays legislation is allegedly about this time:

This amendment is not about disagreements about benefits or domestic partnerships. This amendment simply is about defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Now turn your attention to the latest bit of fallout from Michigan, where their 2004 ballot referendum on amending their own state constitution to recognize only one man-one woman marriage as a legal union was simply about defining marriage too. In fact, it was so much about only protecting the definition of the word against appropriation by anyone but straight couples that its proponents repeatedly went out of their way to assure voters that the change to their constitution wouldn't prevent any employer from extending health benefits to same-sex partners of their employees. Heck, they asserted repeatedly that employers could even cover their employees' cats if they were so inclined, with no interference from the law.

Uh, yeah. Not so much.

In a long-awaited and very disappointing ruling, the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that any partnership benefits granted to gay couples, even those as part of negotiated union agreements, are unconstitutional under the anti-gay marriage amendment, Proposal 2, passed in 2004...

The district court ruled that Proposal 2 did not affect such benefits, but that was overturned by the appeals court and the supreme court upheld the appeals court ruling. The tragic irony of this is that despite the "save the children" rhetoric from the anti-gay crowd, the first people affected by this ruling will be the children of gay couples who may lose health care and other protections as a result.

It's never just about the definition of marriage, never just about preventing gay couples from trundling over to the courthouse and slapping down fifty bucks like any straight couple can do--something state statutes already prohibit. It's purely about opening the door to a multitude of interpretations that will be used to strip away hard-won rights and benefits. It's about one particular strain of self-proclaimed Christians bald-facedly bearing false witness in order to enshrine their religious beliefs into civic policy, so that they can immediately turn around and lay waste to the lives of people who have done nothing to harm them beyond having the temerity to simply exist.