After seven states affirmed traditional marriage -- and an eighth rebuffed the declaration that marriage should be confined to a union between one man and one woman -- activists for and against same-sex marriage disagreed Wednesday on the impact of Tuesday's election.
Arizona became the first of 20 states that have taken up constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage to defeat such a measure -- an "extraordinary" development, according to Christine Nelson of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In separate ballot initiatives, Colorado on Tuesday voted to ban same-sex marriage and defeated a separate bill to permit domestic partnerships.
Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman for Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, said Wednesday that the national results on the subject showed that "especially in light of the shifting of the House of Representatives and potentially the Senate ... voters are motivated by social issues. They want their issues to be represented, and when they are clearly offered in terms of amendments, people turn out."
Nelson, a policy associate who studies marriage for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Colorado voters might have been influenced by the recent scandal involving a Colorado minister who resigned from a leadership post with the National Assn. of Evangelicals after admitting he contacted a male prostitute and purchased methamphetamine.
"Ted Haggard was one of the chief architects of Amendment 43," Nelson said, referring to the amendment to preserve the traditional definition of marriage. News about Haggard dominated the state in the days preceding the election, she said.
"The words 'gay sex' made many people say, 'No, no, no, we'll have none of that going on here,' " Nelson said.
The Haggard scandal built on negative publicity over admissions by now-resigned Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) that he engaged in inappropriate communication with male congressional pages, said Sean Duffy, who led the campaign in Colorado to oppose a ban on same-sex marriage.
Duffy said the recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision requiring that state's Legislature to extend marriage to -- or craft marriage-like benefits for -- same-sex couples also kept the topic on the public radar.
"Our whole campaign was about explaining the commitment of same-sex couples who spend 15, 30 years together in a monogamous relationship, and the media here was wall-to-wall with stuff that was decidedly the opposite.... We had a tough sell," Duffy said.
