Word: stated
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...initiative, a pre-emptive strike against legal measures that would force Nebraska to recognize gay marriages if legalized in another state, shows how far conservatives are willing to go to deny gays and lesbians equal protection under...
...issue wasn't whether gay and lesbians should adopt children or receive legal protection from discrimination in the workplace. This wasn't the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, hate crimes or even separate but equal civil unions. It wasn't even about Nebraska. Rather it was the possibility that another state might legalize gay marriage, and that in due course Nebraska would be forced to recognize the requisite civil rights and legal prerogatives associated with marriage licenses from that state...
...ballot language didn't spell out what was at stake, commentators everywhere, including the editorial boards of the state's three major newspapers, made it abundantly clear the proposition was a referendum on the decency of Nebraska itself. Even the football coach came out against it. Was Nebraska going to keep an open mind on the question of gay rights or define itself as absolutely intolerant...
Seventy percent of a state's voters rarely agree on anything, but when it came time to pre-emptively disenfranchise gay and lesbian Americans from a civil right they already lack, the state that endorsed a candidate claiming to be "a uniter not a divider" united to divide. Of all issues or people voted on, only one candidate attracted a higher percentage of state-wide support than did Proposition...
...Even the state's three Catholic Bishops, who are usually more reserved than their evangelical brethren, couldn't resist taking an early and forceful stance in support of the initiative. In addition to their public support, they mailed pictures of the Pope with biblical quotes about marriage to all of Nebraska's Catholics, who voted 3-1 in favor...