This article was originally published by the Buckeye Flame and is republished here with permission.
The future of LGBTQ+ marriages in Ohio may well depend on the outcome of a little-known Aug. 8 special election, when most people aren’t even expecting an election.
Unless we educate and rally our fellow Ohioans to show up and vote against a cruel constitutional amendment, the outcome could seal the fate for citizen-initiated progress forever, including the future issuance of same-sex marriage licenses.
This isn’t political hyperbole. This is real.
Issue 1 was sneakily put onto the notoriously low-turnout August election (which Republicans just outlawed five months earlier) by power-obsessed far-right legislators. The measure would effectively end citizen-initiated constitutional amendments by making it almost impossible to qualify for the ballot in the first place (unless you’re a billionaire) and then require a 60% super-threshold for passage – ending majority rule in Ohio.
So, what does this have to do with the future of same-sex marriage in Ohio? Pay close attention.
In 2004, Ohioans passed an anti-LGBTQ+ constitutional amendment (initiated by the legislature, not citizens) that made same-sex marriages illegal in Ohio. That remained the law here for the next 11 years until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 26, 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have a federal constitutional right to marry.
Obergefell overrode all state marriage bans, like the one we actually still have embedded in Ohio’s constitution.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court has since veered significantly more conservative, which is what led to the once-thought-impossible overturn of Roe v. Wade last summer, ending the constitutional right to abortion. That decision also significantly weakened privacy rights altogether.
In that decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that Obergefell too should be overturned – even gleefully welcoming an opportunity to do so – and it’s highly likely that the other ultra-conservative justices agree.
When and if that dreadful day happens, there will no longer be a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage, thus triggering Ohio Constitution’s Article XV, Section 11 back into effect: “Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions.”
Wait, you say. Didn’t the U.S. Congress pass the Respect for Marriage Act in December 2022, requiring all states to recognize same-sex marriages licensed in other states? Yes, it did.
But what the act failed to do – because some members of Congress made sure of it – is require states to issue their own same-sex marriage licenses. This means in Ohio, same-sex couples would no longer be able to get Ohio-issued marriage licenses. We would be required to leave Ohio both for the license and to have it solemnized by a judge or clergyperson.
That’s where August’s Issue 1 comes into play. If Issue 1 passes and citizen-led ballot measures are effectively ended, there will be a snowball’s chance in hell that our state constitution’s existing mandate against same-sex marriage could or would ever be unwritten.
Yes, three-fifths of the state legislators could put it on the ballot themselves, free of charge – but the rabidly anti-LGBTQ faction of Ohio’s Republican Party, politically gerrymandered into its near-permanent authoritarian supermajority – would never allow that to happen.
This is precisely why they have deviously cooked up August’s Issue 1 in the first place, because they want 40% of the people to forever lord over the 59.9% majority.
To be sure, Issue 1, in the short term, may be about stopping an abortion rights amendment coming to voters this November. But it wouldn’t end there. If passed by the handful of voters who show up – with some estimates placing turnout at just 8% – this anti-democracy measure will have a huge negative impact on anything and everything you may care about: LGBTQ+ rights, recreational marijuana, voting rights, living wages, workers’ rights and on and on, forever.
This summer, especially during Pride month, get involved in the “NO” campaign and commit to doing everything you can to urge every good Ohioan to turn out on Aug. 8 – in droves. Early voting starts on July 11.
Let’s soundly reject and defeat Issue 1. Don’t let corrupt legislators steal our collective power as citizens. Our lives, as well as our rights, depend on it. 🔥
J. Bennett Guess is the executive director of the ACLU of Ohio. He and his husband live in Cleveland.
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