Equal rights group rallies against anti-gay initiative

Jeffrey Libby

Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2000 | 11:22 a.m.

The Rev. Valerie Garrick says the "Protection of Marriage" initiative is based on hate and discrimination.

Before about 30 people gathered at Christ Episcopal Church on South Maryland Parkway Monday, she said Question 2 on Nevada's November ballot only pretends to be about the Christian values of love and healthy families.

Garrick is the co-chairwoman of Equal Rights Nevada, a coalition that formed specifically to fight the Protection of Marriage petition.

Circulated by the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage, the petition garnered 105,000 signatures, almost triple the amount it needed to be on the November ballot. The measure would add a second prohibition in the Nevada Constitution against same-sex marriages.

Monday's rally, held in a spare room off a central open courtyard, was energized by a six-member chorus singing songs of tolerance and inclusion.

It will be a struggle, however, for the message of Garrick's group to be heard statewide. Her group has raised $1,700. The Coalition for the Protection of Marriage, headed by Richard Ziser, has raised nearly $748,000.

"There is no room for the seeds of discrimination and no room for the seeds of hate in our Constitution," Garrick said Monday in her speech before the small group of supporters.

"We must honor all families," Garrick said. "And that includes single-parent families. It includes two-parent families. It includes different gendered families. It includes same gendered families and interracial families and families of color."

The initiative would amend the Nevada Constitution to provide that "only a marriage between a male and a female person shall be recognized and given effect in this state."

Although that provision already exists in Nevada law, Ziser fears that some states -- Hawaii and Vermont, for example -- are leaning toward allowing same-sex marriages.

Ziser, who owns a small property management company, fears that same-sex couples from states that could end up allowing such marriages may move to Nevada and expect the same marital rights.

It is for this reason that he wants Nevada's Constitution to be doubly clear on the issue.

Thirty-four other states have amended traditional marriage laws since 1996, reinforcing their state constitutions against same-sex marriages.

This shows that a majority of the country supports traditional marriage laws, Ziser said.

Liz Moore, a board member of Equal Rights Nevada, noted that up until 1967 states could refuse to recognize interracial marriages that took place in other states. Her point was that states that ban same-sex marriages today are as intolerant and backward as were the states that banned interracial marriages in decades past.

"The fact is that everybody deserves the same basic equal rights," Moore said. "The initiative is unnecessary, divisive, discriminatory, and it hurts families that deserve the same equal rights as other families."

Attending Monday's rally was Susan Carratelli, 44, a medical technologist. She is gay and her partner is the mother of a 14-month-old girl. The two women live with two gay men. The four are raising the baby.

"We have our own families and our own relationships," Carratelli said. "But (the child) should be entitled to the same Social Security benefits as her mother."

Ziser holds a different view. He says government should recognize traditional families only.

"What we are doing is solidifying current state law," Ziser said.