Both sides of Amendment 2 argument debate issue
by BILL COTTERELL - FLORIDA CAPITAL BUREAU POLITICAL EDITOR
TALLAHASSEE — The main sponsor of a constitutional ban on gay marriage said today all “aberrant forms of marriage” might become legal unless Florida voters adopt his proposal at the polls next November.
But the former head of the National Organization for Women argued that the state already has laws recognizing only heterosexual unions — and warned that the pending change would jeopardize the rights of tens of thousands of unmarried couples, gay and straight.
John Stemberger, president and general counsel of the Florida Family Policy Council, and Miami attorney Patricia Ireland, representing an anti-amendment group called Florida Red and Blue, debated Amendment 2 at a luncheon of the Capital Tiger Bay Club. Stemberger’s Florida4Marriage.org group succeeded Feb. 1 in getting more than 600,000 voter signatures to qualify the gay-marriage ban for a statewide referendum.
Each side accused the other of harboring ulterior motives. Stemberger said proponents of gay marriage want to open the domestic-relations law to all kinds of unions, while Ireland said supporters of the amendment have an activist agenda of family-law changes — including restrictions on divorce.
“This is not the end game. There are many people who want to bring their aberrant forms of marriage to the table and once you open the door, there’s really no end to it,” said Stemberger, an attorney. “If marriage means anything, then marriage means nothing.”
Ireland said Stemberger and organizations favoring the amendment have a longer agenda.
“This is not the end game for him either. He has said that his next proposal, if Amendment 2 passes, will be to make it more difficult to get divorced,” he said. “His motivation in putting Amendment 2 forward, and trying to portray it as a ban on gay and lesbian marriage, is to me suspect.”
Stemberger said no-fault divorce “has been a sociological disaster” for families over the past 40 years.