New Tactic In Fighting Marriage Initiatives

Al Breznay, 79, and Maxine Piatt, 75, are registered domestic partners living in Tucson. Their faces appeared on fliers and television ads opposing a statewide same-sex marriage ban. (By John Miller -- Houston Chronicle)

Talking to straight couples does not always work; the strategy failed in Virginia this year, where a marriage law passed with 57 percent of the vote.

The differences in Arizona were a longer campaign and a relentless focus on benefits and health care, Rouse said.

In Virginia, "most of the media coverage talked about a gay marriage ban," he said, "whereas in Arizona, you did hear about a ban on same-sex marriage, but it was still focused on health care."

This month's results may prove instructive in setting the debate in the next state where same-sex marriage is likely to appear on the ballot: Florida, in 2008.

"Florida might be able to learn from Arizona," Rouse said. But "campaigns are campaigns. If you do your research and you find out what voters care about, then you know what to focus on."

For some gay activists, it was bittersweet to defeat a same-sex marriage ban by avoiding the subject of homosexuality.

"To truly win the freedom to marry and end discrimination, we can't just play defense," said Evan Wolfson, executive director of the gay rights group Freedom to Marry. He added that proponents of same-sex marriage must "avoid messaging that blocks further attacks and does not move us further ahead."

Wolfson says he takes heart in the reelection of legislators who support same-sex marriage and in the narrowing margins by which initiatives banning same-sex marriage have passed. In 2004, 71 percent of voters voted for such initiatives on average; that dropped to 56 percent this year.

"Even if, in the short-term battles, we may have to emphasize the overbreadth, the dangers to non-gay people and the general unfairness, the trend is in our favor," Wolfson said.

That is not how it looks to Bill Maier, vice president and psychologist in residence at Focus on the Family, a proponent of state same-sex marriage bans.

Voters in states with marriage initiatives this year tended to be more libertarian than those voting in 2004, so they shied away from constitutional changes, he said.

"When you see more of these amendments pop up in 'red states,' I think you're going to see more of those large percentages," Maier said.

Maier also sees a backlash on the horizon. He points to New Jersey, where civil unions or same-sex marriage could be legalized in the next six months after an order by the state Supreme Court.

"When people see gay people standing on the courthouse steps saying, 'I'm getting married come hell or high water,' among the general population there tends to be a recoil," Maier said.

For their part, Breznay and Piatt are pleased that Arizona's initiative lost, though same-sex marriage has never been their cause.

"We didn't care one way or the other. It didn't involve us," Piatt said. "That's what makes me so angry, is people linked this gay marriage to domestic partnerships."

Breznay added, "We got involved because it was affecting us personally."