House to see marriage amendment

BOISE – A proposed constitutional amendment to recognize marriage between a man and woman as the only legal domestic union in Idaho was sent to the House of Representatives on Thursday after more than two hours of public testimony and a 13-4 committee vote.

Thirty-eight people testified before the House State Affairs Committee, some urging members to protect the sanctity of marriage by voting for the amendment and others asking them to consider the rights and liberties of all and vote against it.

Sixteen spoke in favor of the amendment, many wearing stickers bearing a picture of the purple fingertip of an Iraqi voter with the words “Let Idaho Vote.” The amendment will be on the November ballot if the House and Senate approve it by a two-thirds majority.

Rep. Bob Ring, R-Caldwell, was one of two Republicans and two Democrats who voted against the amendment, but he said he was not surprised it passed.

“It’s been the same for the last two years,” he said, referring to similar proposals in the past two legislative sessions. “Everyone pretty much stakes out their territory and sticks with it.”

Last year’s amendment passed the House but died in the Senate. Membership in both chambers remains largely unchanged.

Ring also voted against the amendment when it was proposed to the committee last week, and said the political backlash he is likely to face almost made him vote differently this time.

“I will be targeted in the next election, but I had to vote with my heart and what I believe,” he said. “It’s who I am.”

Legislative leaders are sponsoring the proposal.

“It is not a policy change; it is a policy reinforcement,” said House Majority Leader Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale.

The Legislature passed a bill in 1996 that prohibits same-sex couples from marrying.

Some say the existing law makes a constitutional amendment unnecessary, but Allen Gorin of Toward Tradition, a conservative group of Jews and Christians, said marriage is too important not to take all precautions.

“Some things are so precious that they warrant insurance against even the possibility that some harm may come to them,” he said.

But Boise resident Julianne Russell, joined by her husband and four children, told the committee that outside factors cannot harm marriage.

“I can assure you that no one is capable of eroding the sanctity of my marriage, save for my spouse and myself,” she said. “To suggest that anyone else is responsible for the strength and sanctity of our union is to relieve us – and in my opinion rob us – of our responsibility to our commitment.”

Julie Lynde, executive director of the conservative religious organization Cornerstone Institute of Idaho, said allowing same-sex marriage would harm children by allowing them to be raised without a healthy family with parents of both genders.

“Mothers and fathers parent differently, and each gender brings vitally important and unique elements to a child’s development,” Lynde said. “Deconstructing marriage to include alternatives is just one more social experiment placed squarely on the backs of our children.”

Others decried the proposed amendment as discriminatory.

“Idaho is just now recovering from what I have long said was an unjust and overblown recognition as a place of prejudice and intolerance,” Leslie Goddard, director of the Idaho Human Rights Commission, told the committee. “This resolution will rekindle that controversy.”

Many opposed to the amendment warned that declaring marriage between men and women as the only legal domestic union would prohibit even unmarried heterosexual couples from things like shared insurance or hospital visitation rights.

Rep. Bert Stevenson, R-Rupert, said those were issues that could be addressed through legislation. Stevenson made the motion to send the amendment to the full House.