Christian Century: Voters' moral caution

STATE BALLOT ISSUES often generate exceptional heat as well as television advertising revenue, but on balance most Americans today are living in only slightly changed worlds after voting on initiatives this month. Hot-button moral issues such as abortion, gay rights, gambling and physician-assisted suicide competed with political candidates for attention. In the end, like the tight presidential contest, few conservative or liberal partisans could claim a clear mandate.

Voters in Nebraska and Nevada passed bans on gay marriage. Oregonians rejected a measure that would have forbidden teaching about homosexuality and bisexuality in public schools. A Colorado measure to institute a 24-hour waiting period before abortions was soundly defeated. In Maine, a measure to allow physician-assisted suicide lost by a razor-thin margin.

All told, voters in 42 states considered more than 9.00 ballot measures, including the recurring question of school vouchers. Voters in California and Michigan resoundly rejected, by 7-to-3 margins, proposals that could have aided private and religious schools. Their defeat "proves once again that Americans are not prepared to turn church-state relations upside down to support such a dubious method to improve education," said a statement by the American Jewish Congress, which maintained that public school education would have been weakened had the measures passed.

The big story this year, according to Dane Waters, president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute in Washington, D.C., is that "voters seemed to be cautious and moderate in their approach. Excluding the bans on same-sex marriage, they didn't pass anything controversial."

The success of the proposals to ban same-sex marriage in Nebraska and Nevada comes on the heels of similar wins in Alaska and Hawaii in 1998 and in California earlier this year. In all, 33 states now define marriage as between a man and a woman only But the Nebraska measure is unique because it takes the definition one step further by declaring same-sex civil unions invalid as well--a direct rebuff of Vermont's law legalizing such unions.

"The people understand the true definition of marriage. They didn't want the definition changed by the legislature or dictated by some other state," said Richard Ziser, chairman of Nevada's Coalition for the Protection of Marriage. He said most of the coalition's support came from faith-based groups, including Muslims, evangelicals, Mormons and Catholics.

Maine voters rejected a measure that would have banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Polls had shown support for the measure near 60 percent leading up to November 7, but that appears to have dissipated into an unexpected 2 percent defeat.

Indeed, for gay rights advocates, Election Day could have gone better. They came out on the losing side in three of four major rights battles, and their one victory--in Oregon--was defensive. But, they say, that victory was a major one and the other battles may just be starting.

Nebraska's gay-marriage ban may ultimately be decided by a judge. The American Civil Liberties Union plans to investigate the constitutionality of the ban, said ACLU spokesman Eric Ferrero, and will consider challenging the measure in court because it is so broad.

According to Ferrero, of all the measures concerned with homosexuality, the Oregon proposal in regard to teaching about it and bisexuality in public schools would have had the greatest and most harmful impact on the daily lives of gays and lesbians. The marriage bans, on the other hand, were likely put on the ballots as wedge issues and do not have any immediate impact other than to be divisive and stir up resentment, he said.

Except for Colorado, abortion was largely absent from state ballots this time around. The state's waiting-period proposal received only 40 percent of the popular vote. Gary Rogers, chairman of the Colorado Pro-Life Alliance, viewed the defeat as an indictment of the Christian church, saying, "The church has surrendered to our culture." He plans to continue fighting for abortion restrictions, perhaps following this year's effort with additional legislative action and church education.

In one of the year's more dramatic contests, the state of Maine witnessed a fierce battle over a physician-assisted suicide measure waged by two well-financed, passionate and highly organized foes. Ultimately, Mainers voted to keep the option illegal, but they did so only after a brutal media and television campaign that cost over $3 million--roughly $2 for every person in the state. Foes of the measure were accused of running misleading ads and trying to scare people into voting against the proposal. In the end, said Mark Mutty of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, "It was largely won on the inherent dangers of the bill and on the dangers of the issue itself." Maine now joins California, Washington and Michigan in rejecting physician-assisted suicide. Oregon is the only state to have legalized it.

The gambling lobby generally fared well in state elections. Of six ballot measures on gambling, four were decided in its favor--including Colorado, where a multistate lottery won by a big margin. The lobby's biggest victory came in South Carolina, where a statewide lottery was approved over the warnings of most newspapers and nearly every religious denomination in the state.

Finally, Alabama repealed by a 3-to-2 margin a longstanding ban on interracial marriage, thus becoming the last state to enact a constitutional bar against discrimination by race, color, religion, national origin or gender.

--RNS and CENTURY sources