Five years after Michigan voters embedded true marriage in the state constitution, a Democrat representative has introduced a bill to overturn the ban on same-sex “marriage.”
In proposing the new measure last week, Rep. Pam Byrnes, the House speaker pro tempore from Washtenaw County, followed through on a promise she made at a June homosexual rights rally in Lansing.
She made her move only days after voters in the city of Kalamazoo approved a ballot initiative guaranteeing special rights for homosexual and gender-confused individuals. Byrnes claimed this vote indicated a “significant change” in public opinion since the state-wide vote in 2004, according to the Kalamazoo Gazette.
The 2004 constitutional amendment, which banned both same-sex “marriage” and civil unions, easily passed with 58.6% of the vote.
Same-sex “marriage” supporters, however, have pointed to a June 2009 poll that seems to indicate a fall in support for natural marriage among Michiganders. The Glengariff poll of 600 voters showed that 48% favored true marriage, only slightly higher than the 46.5% who were in favor of legalizing same-sex “marriage.” The poll also showed that 63.7% now favor legalizing same-sex civil unions, with similar rights to marriage, while only 31.1% were opposed.
Byrnes’ measure includes a repeal of the constitutional amendment, an explicit legalization of same-sex “marriage” in the state, and a repeal of state laws not allowing the recognition of same-sex “marriages” from other states.
She will require a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate in order to get the constitutional question back on the state ballot for November 2010.
