NewsWrap for the week ending November 6, 2004 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #867, distributed 11-8-04) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Rex Wockner, and Greg Gordon] Reported this week by Cindy Friedman and Jon Beaupré U.S. elections dominated the news this week, and the national outcomes bode ill for advances towards equality for sexual minorities. President George W. Bush won about 51% of the vote and another four years in office while his Republican Party increased their majorities in both the House and the Senate. With as many as four Supreme Court openings likely to be filled during his term, the impact of these victories can be expected to extend for many more years. Voters in eleven states approved amending their state constitutions to deny legal marriage to same-gender couples, and did so by substantial margins in all but one. Numerous pundits are declaring the marriage issue key to the Republican success, and a number of Democrats believe their party must reconsider its positioning on the interests of its small but intensely committed lesbigay constituency. According to exit polls, self-identified lesbigay voters themselves supported Bush to essentially the same extent they did in 2000, with three-fourths preferring his Democratic opponent Senator John Kerry. Yet openly gay and lesbian candidates won in at least 18 states, although two strong bids to become the nation's first openly transsexual elected official failed. And one uniquely anti-gay city charter provision was repealed. The widespread attribution of Republican gains to anti-gay sentiment began even before the Bush victory had become apparent in the returns, and national lesbigay organizations are generally contesting it. It's based primarily on an exit poll in which more than one fifth of voters picked "moral values" as their leading consideration in the presidential election, ahead of the economy, terrorism, the war in Iraq, and education. Among those "moral values" voters, four-fifths supported Bush. The activist groups say the category is too vague to be equated directly with lesbigay rights. It's even more doubtful it equates directly with marriage for gay and lesbian couples, since exit polling also found 25% support for marriage equality and 35% support for civil unions versus only 37% opposition to any legal recognition for same-gender couples. Also, in the states with constitutional amendments against marriage on the ballot, quite a few Bush voters were among those who skipped the marriage question entirely. Plus of course the only meaningful difference between the Presidential candidates' stated positions on the marriage issue was with respect to amending the national constitution to exclude same-gender couples, which Kerry opposed and Bush vocally supported. Last week Bush even said he believed states should be able to establish non-marital legal status for same-gender couples, disputing the Republican Party platform that opposes any form of legal recognition for them. Yet it's generally agreed that in a close election with a high turnout, the marriage issue served its purpose of actually getting the religious right to the polls, particularly from rural regions. In fact it may have made more of a difference in some races farther down the ticket than it did in the Bush victory, just as it did in giving Republicans control of the national legislature in the 1990s elections that gave Democrat Bill Clinton the Presidency. The new Republican U.S. Senators all apparently benefited from anti-gay campaigning, although actual anti-marriage amendments were on the ballot in only two of their states. In a rare outcome, the Democrats' Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle was dumped by his South Dakota constituency in favor of Republican John Thune, an evangelical Christian who warned that schools would be teaching that same-gender marriages were the "moral equivalent" of heterosexuals ones. South Carolina's Senator-elect Jim DeMint declared in one of his campaign ads that, "government cannot approve and promote homosexuality," and added in debating his opponent that he believed gays should be banned from teaching in public schools. Florida's Senator-elect Mel Martinez called his Democratic opponent "the new darling of the homosexual extremists," apparently a reference to Congressmember Bill McCollum signing on as a sponsor of a federal hate crimes bill. In the amendment state of Oklahoma, Senator-elect Tom Coburn not only labeled what he called "the gay agenda" as "the greatest threat to our freedom we face today," but said in a speech that "rampant" lesbianism had forced some Oklahoma schools to allow only one girl at a time to use the bathroom. The Kentucky marriage amendment is credited with helping Jim Bunning squeak out a narrow victory for the U.S. Senate. On behalf of the former baseball pro, Republican State Senate President David Williams underscored the Democratic candidate's bachelor status and described him as "limp-wristed". There was little doubt of the success of the anti-marriage amendments to eleven state constitutions. Lesbigay groups concentrated their money and resources on opposing the one in Oregon, where anti-gay ballot initiatives have been defeated several times in the past. The debate there had been advanced by licensing of hundreds of same-gender couples in Multnomah County earlier this year and by attendant lawsuits that seemed to have a good chance of winning marriage equality. The activists' work may well have significantly diminished the vote spread, but the Oregon amendment still won 57% support. That was the smallest margin of victory for any of the amendments, followed by Michigan at 59% and Ohio at 62%. Montana and Utah voters approved their amendments by two-to-one margins, while Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, North Dakota, and Oklahoma affirmed theirs by three-to-one. The most enthusiastic marriage banners were in Mississippi, where more than 85% of voters agreed. Voters had approved anti-marriage amendments earlier this year in Louisiana a nd Missouri, while they were already in place in Alaska, Hawai'i, Nebraska, and Nevada. Of the current crop, only the Mississippi, Montana and Oregon amendments are restricted solely to marriage. The rest equally prohibit civil unions, while Ohio's denies any legal status whatever to all unmarried couples. The Ohio measure explicitly denies joint adoptions to unmarried couples, and some believe it could even bar private employers from extending benefits to their workers' domestic partners. Only a series of legal cases will reveal the real impact of these measures beyond keeping legal marriage hetero-exclusive. Lawsuits challenging the Georgia and Oklahoma amendments are already underway, and challenges to others are being contemplated. Most of the amendments had already been the subject of extensive litigation as civil rights groups attempted to keep them off the ballot, but courts can be expected to be more willing to act against them now that voters have had the chance to express their opinions. If there's a ray of hope, it's that the broadest amendments may be the most vulnerable legally, since state constitutions generally require their amendments to have just one subject. At least in one Louisiana trial court, denying more than just marriage was found to violate that rule. Courts failed to strike down a measure Cincinnati, Ohio voters adopted by a landslide in 1993, an amendment to the city charter that prohibited enactment of civil rights protections for gays and lesbians. In fact that notorious Issue 3 went before the U.S. Supreme Court along with the similar Colorado state Amendment 2. The nation's highest court struck down Amendment 2 with a ringing endorsement of equal treatment for all, and that discouraged and reversed similar measures in other cities. But, perhaps disturbed by the Cincinnati measure's muddy wording, the high court sent Issue 3 back down to the federal appeals court that had already okayed it. Although the Supreme Court had asked the appellate court to reconsider Issue 3 "in light of" the Amendment 2 decision, the lower court responded with a near-carbon-copy of its own first approval. Only this week did a repeal measure go before the Cincinnati voters who approved Issue 3 to begin with, and they responded with a 54% majority to strike it down. More than a score of openly gay and lesbian candidates won elections this week, some in states with anti-marriage amendments on the same ballots. Most benefited from the support of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. All three openly gay and lesbian U.S. Congressmembers were returned to office -- Democrats Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Republican Jim Kolbe of Arizona. The California state legislature's Lesbian & Gay Caucus all won. Sheila Kuehl will be joined in the state Senate by Christine Kehoe, previously of the state Assembly. Returning to the Assembly are John Laird and Mark Leno. They're all Democrats. The political group Equality California believes the overall results there bode well for enactment of marriage equality legislation in the coming year. The lone legal marriage state, Massachusetts, returned every single one of its gay-supportive state lawmakers while diminishing the supporters of a state constitutional amendment to replace marriage with civil unions. The state legislature will include returning gay Senator Jarrett Barrios and lesbian Representative Liz Malia, both of whom were unopposed, with the addition of new gay Representative Carl Sciortino. They're all Democrats. New York returned Democrat Tom Duane to the state Senate with nearly 85% support and Democrat Danny O'Donnell to the state Assembly with 92%. Could O'Donnell's sister Rosie's name recognition have something to do with it? Also in New York, openly gay Republican Daniel Stewart was reelected Mayor of Plattsburgh by almost three-to-one. Colorado Democrat Jennifer Veiga was unopposed to return for her state Senate seat. Connecticut Democrat Art Feltman was returned to the state Assembly. Democrat Karla Drenner was returned to the state House in Georgia, an amendment state. Idaho has its first-ever openly lesbian or gay elected official as Democrat Nicole LeFavour won a state House seat by a two-to-one landslide. Democrat Lawrence Bliss won his seat in the Maine House by a two-to-one margin. Democrat Chris Kolb was returned to the state House with whopping four-to-one support in Michigan, an amendment state. Democrat Karen Clark was returned to the Minnesota House with more than 85% of the vote. Democrat Jeanette Mott Oxford took almost 90% of the vote for her Missouri House seat. Democrat David Parks was returned to the Nevada state Assembly in a near-landslide. In a close North Carolina state Senate race still being counted, Democrat Julia Boseman appears to have become the state's first openly-lesbian or -gay legislator. Democrat Jackie Biskupskie was returned with almost 84% of the vote to the state House in Utah, an amendment state. Democrat Ed Flanagan, the first open gay in the U.S. ever to win a statewide elected office in 1992 as Vermont's State Auditor, now joins the state Senate. Democrat Jason Lorber won a seat in the Vermont House in his first-ever campaign. Oregon, an amendment state, made Rives Kistler a Supreme Court Justice -- and the first open gay or lesbian ever to win a statewide election there. There's been special interest in Latina lesbian Lupe Valdez' election as sheriff of Dallas County, Texas. The Democrat is the first woman the county's ever elected to that post, and she ousted an incumbent to do it. Don't doubt her abilities -- she was a federal agent for 28 years. The close gubernatorial race in the state of Washington is going down to the counting of the last absentee ballot, and that could be thanks in part to an openly lesbian third party candidate who never had a chance of winning -- Libertarian Ruth Bennett. And finally... while millions of U.S. voters were rejecting marriage equality, their neighbors to the north continued in the opposite direction. A court ruling this week made Saskatchewan the seventh Canadian province or territory to open marriage to same-gender couples. Justice Donna Wilson followed previous legal decisions in finding that it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to deny marriage to gay and lesbian couples. She ruled that, "The common-law definition of marriage for civil purposes is declared to be 'the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.'" Neither the federal nor the provincial government contested the lawsuit brought by five gay and lesbian couples, but Wilson ordered both governments to pay the plaintiffs' legal fees. Two lesbian couples filed a similar lawsuit this week in Newfoundland, which could well become the next of the remaining four provinces and two territories to open marriage to same-gender couples. Gay and lesbian families in the U.S. are very aware of the contrast, and a number of them are seriously considering emigration. They've sent a growing number of heart-rending e-mails about it to the Canadian activist group Same-Sex Marriage. And they're certainly among the record-smashing 179,000 visitors to Canada's immigration Web site on the day of Bush's acceptance speech. On hearing of this phenomenon, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin responded wryly, "The fact is we are a country of immigrants and we're prepared to receive immigrants from anywhere. [But] I doubt very much if refugee status is the way that I would characterize it."