Prop 8 Blog-OHIO
Marriage equality supporters in Ohio resubmit petition to repeal constitutional amendment
By Jacob Combs
Early this month, a group called the Freedom to Marry Coalition collected and filed over 1700 signatures with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office to place a measure on the November ballot that would repeal the state’s 2004 constitutional ban on marriage equality. A week later, Attorney General Mike DeWine, an opponent of marriage equality, rejected the group’s petition, writing that he was “unable to certify the summary as a fair and truthful statement of the proposed constitutional amendment for three reasons.”
Yesterday, the Freedom to Marry Coalition resubmitted their petition, this time with almost 2400 signatures. In an email to The Gay People’s Chronicle, Ian James of the Freedom to Marry coalition wrote, “We expected the AG rejection and drafted a revised summary petition. The issue of brevity, Title 31 and the individual recognition have been addressed.”
Should DeWine accept the revised proposal, the group would have to collect around 385,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot. Equality Ohio, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, has not yet come out in support of the effort, and any path to repealing the constitutional amendment rmains uncertain.
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