Churches in Ohio are rallying their massive flocks behind the most strident anti-gay marriage amendment in the nation -- and the Republican National Committee is in heaven.
By Michelle Goldberg
Julie Reeves and Leigh Mamlin live in a split-level, stucco-and-brick house in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, with their two children, 18-month-old Frannie and 3-year-old Charlie. Reeves, a silver-haired 45-year-old, works full-time as an administrator at Ohio State University, her alma matter, while 40-year-old Mamlin, the children's biological mother, stays home. A grey minivan is parked in the driveway and baby books are piled on the coffee table. As they sit in their cozy living room on Sunday evening, Frannie nestles in Mamlin's lap while Charlie perches on Reeves' knee.
If Reeves and Mamlin weren't lesbians, their nuclear family would seem almost anachronistically average. Because they are, they find themselves in the middle of a raging election-season culture war that could leave Mamlin and the children without health insurance and Reeves without child custody. "It's such a personal assault," says Mamlin. "We feel violated, misunderstood, misrepresented and hated by people who are ignorant of who we truly are." And it's all coming from their fellow citizens.
On Nov. 2, Ohio will vote on Issue 1, a state constitutional amendment that purports to simply ban same-sex marriage but actually goes much further. Ten other states -- Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah -- are also voting on anti-gay marriage amendments. They're all expected to pass, most by wide margins. Eight of the state amendments prohibit domestic partnerships or any other public benefits or recognition for gay couples. But as a headline on the front page of Columbus Dispatch recently said, "Issue 1 wording makes it the strictest." Polls show support for it hovering above 60 percent.
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But even as the state's economy decays, its big evangelical churches are thriving, and, with the tacit support of the national Republican Party, they have mobilized behind Issue 1. Preachers are exhorting flocks of thousands to vote their values in an election said to pit light against darkness. Ohio's gay citizens, a minority courted by no one, have been blindsided by the campaign against them. Many feel like they're under siege. Talk of moving to a friendlier state or country is widespread.
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http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/18/gayohio/index.html