Backers of two amendments that would have allowed Ohioans to vote on repealing the ban on same-sex marriage and extending legal protections to women, LGBTQ+ and disabled people won’t be submitting petition signatures to get on the ballot this November.
Ohio Equal Rights co-chair Lis Regula wouldn't say how many petition signatures the group has gathered, but he said that’s not why the group decided to put off its ballot measures.
“This was a strategy decision, not a numbers decision," Regula said.
Regula said this November will be an election where a lot of candidates will be on the ballot. All top statewide offices will be on the ballot along with a U.S. Senate race, Ohio's 15 members of Congress, the entire Ohio House and half the Ohio Senate, and two Ohio Supreme Court seats.
“We would prefer to have lower marketing costs when we are not competing with as many candidate campaigns, so next year, in an off year, that tends to be more common," Regula said. "And we’d also like more time to have more conversations, especially around implementation and how we can use this new tool once it is in place."
The group would have needed about 413,487 valid signatures from half of Ohio's counties by July 1 for each of the two proposed amendments.
The influential Center for Christian Virtue opposes the effort. President Aaron Baer wrote in a statement: “While we welcome this news, voters across Ohio cannot let their guards down. The demagogues behind these harmful amendments will flood our state with dark money and lies in the coming year. We must remain vigilant at the ballot box this November, and elect leaders who share our values and will protect Ohio families. The proposed amendments would put Ohio’s girls and women’s spaces at risk. They would unnecessarily remove unenforceable language from Ohio’s Constitution that defines marriage as 'only a union between one man and one woman.'"
An effort to extend legal protections to LGBTQ+ Ohioans continues through Senate Bill 70, the Ohio Fairness Act backed by Democrats. It's the 12th time that idea has been proposed, but unlike in previous sessions the bill does not have bipartisan support this time.
In 2004, Ohio lawmakers passed legislation banning same-sex marriage passed and then asked voters to approve a constitutional amendment stating the same thing. That presidential election year brought out 71.77% of voters, the sixth-highest turnout in Ohio since 1978, when Ohio required full registration of voters.
This isn't the first time a group has tried to overturn Ohio's law and constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. The group Freedom to Marry Ohio tried to take a repeal of the law to voters in 2014 but decided against it that year. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jim Obergefell of Cincinnati in his lawsuit against Ohio Department of Health director Rick Hodges in what became the landmark case legalizing same sex marriage.
