Subject: South Dakota Marriage Bill in Senate Hearings Monday
From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 16:58:02 -0500

Free Americans Creating Equal Status of South Dakota, Inc.
Barry Wick, Executive Director
13121 South Creekview Road
Rapid City, South Dakota  57702-8503
Phone  605-343-5577
FAX  605-394-8962
email:  [email-masked]
http://www.qrd.org/qrd/usa/south_dakota/FACES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

     South Dakota Senators on the Judiciary Committee will hear testimony
Monday on a bill designed to stop gays and lesbians from marrying.  House
Bill 1143 states that marriage should be only for a man and a woman.
Activists from around the state of South  Dakota will converge on the small
hearing room 413 in the state capital building in Pierre starting on Monday,
February 12th  at 10 a.m.  
     There have been surprises for both sides of this issue.  Proponants of
the bill including those from the Eagle Forum and the South Dakota Family
Policy Council, affiliated with Focus on the Family, had expected the bill to
sail through the House State Affairs Committee as a similar bill had the
previous year.  The committee's vote the previous year was 9-3 in favor of a
ban on same-sex marriage.  However, 1996 proved to be a different year in
front of the same committee members with a decision in the opposite
direction, 7-6 against a "do pass" motion and then 8-5 on a motion to table.
     Not to be stymied, the bill's sponsor, Rep. Roger Hunt, R-Brandon, told
opponants that it wasn't over.  True to his word, he organized a "smoke-out"
procedure in which the House told the committee to send the bill back to the
floor of the House.  Before doing so,  the committee  issued an 8-5 vote in
favor of a "do not pass" motion.  Not to be outdone, Hunt asked the full
House to void the committee's decision by removing the word "not" from the
committee's "do not pass" vote which the House did.  Then the bill was passed
by the House 49-18.
     Anti-gay organizers tried to get the bill into a more favorable
committee in the Senate and failed.  HB 1143 landed before the Senate
Judiciary Committee which had nixed a similar bill in the 1995 session.  Even
South Dakota Family Policy Council Executive Director John Paulton was heard
this week on the nationally syndicated radio talk show,"Focus on the Family
with James Dobson" saying the committee assignment was unfavorable.
     If the Senate Judiciary Committee votes "do not pass" or to table the
bill,  opponents  expecte HB 1143 to be smoked out onto the floor by a third
of the Senate members, the requirements for a "smoke-out" procedure.
    In a related action, The City of Brookings Human Rights Committee told
the South Dakota Senate today to reject HB 1143 because it is discriminatory.
 Committee Chairman Geoffrey Grant issued the statement this morning that
said it was the committee's belief the bill originated out of homophobia.  It
stated four main reasons for rejecting the bill including the potential that
South Dakotans already insured by companies would suffer loss of their
benefits.
    The SDFPC said in a recent "same-sex marriage law overview" mailed across
the state that "most opponents of this bill are unwilling to speak up in
favor of gay marriage."    
    Barry Wick, executive director of FACES of South Dakota said "We support
marriage.  We are in favor of marriage for two committed, loving adults who
wish to share a life together.  We are in favor of the stabilizing qualities
of marriage.  The SDFPC and sponsors of HB 1143 are the ones against marriage
and against those families who stay together despite their lack of inclusion
in modern America.    Why Rep. Hunt and the SDFPC want to divide America by
love, I'll never completely understand."

-30-