Florida Marriage Protection Amendment on 2008 Ballot!

According to an email I just received from Liberty Council here is some exciting and excellent news, “Late last night the Florida Division of Elections announced that the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment is now certified for the November 4, 2008 ballot with a total of 649,346 petitions. Within the last two weeks, 92,000 petitions were collected in order to exceed the 611,009 required before the February 1 deadline.

”The amendment defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman and would prohibit polygamy, group marriage, and same sex marriage from being recognized in Florida. The fight to bring this amendment to the ballot has been a coordinated effort by many individuals, organizations and churches. … No marriage amendment effort any state has gathered as many signatures.

”In December, the Florida Division of Elections web site reported that more than enough petitions had counted and verified by the Supervisors of Elections, but then indicated in January that approximately 30,000 of the petitions were thrown out causing a shortage of approximately 22,000 petitions. With only two weeks remaining, groups and individuals all over the state rallied to collect more signatures to meet the February 1 deadline.

”The process to amend the state constitution to protect marriage began in 2005 after a series of lawsuits were filed challenging Florida’s Defense of Marriage Act … that was passed in 1997. … (O)n March 23, 2006, the Florida Supreme Court in a 7-0 opinion rejected the ACLU’s challenge to the marriage amendment. Following the ruling by the Court, the task became obtaining the required number of signatures …

The email concludes with the following challenge, “Now we must turn our efforts toward educating Florida voters about the necessity of passing this amendment in November. Florida constitutional amendments require passage by 60% of the voters.”

Hopefully this Marriage Protection Amendment will pass overwhelmingly in Florida this fall. Notice, too, who always seems to be in forefront of any fray fighting anything that would protect basic American values such as traditional marriage – the godless, despicable (anti-)“American” Civil “Liberties” Union (ACLU).