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| | Date set for arguments in marriage amendment challenge
Saturday, Aug 28, 2004 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Oral arguments on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages will be heard by the Arkansas Supreme Court on Sept. 23. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas filed a legal challenge to the proposed amendment on Thursday hoping to get it tossed off the Nov. 2 general election ballot. In an order Friday morning, the Supreme Court gave the ACLU and the state attorney general's office until Sept. 15 to file briefs and until Sept. 20 to respond to the briefs. The complaint names Secretary of State Charlie Daniels as defendant. His office certified the proposal for the ballot after counting nearly 96,000 valid signatures of registered voters. The measure needed 80,570 signatures to be certified for the ballot. The attorney general's office also certified in March that the ballot title and popular name of the proposed amendment were sufficient, fair and not misleading. Jerry Cox, president of the Arkansas Marriage Amendment Committee, the organization pushing the amendment, said the group will intervene as a party in the lawsuit, possibly next week. The ACLU said the proposed amendment, which also would prohibit state recognition of civil unions between same-sex couples, is deliberately vague - hiding potentially far-ranging effects on civil unions, single people and heterosexual married couples. Cox said the legal challenge is "without merit." Earlier this week, supporters of a proposal to legalize marijuana for medical use delivered 30,000 new signatures to the secretary of state's office and resubmitted more than 17,000 after having them notarized in an effort to get the measure on the Nov. 2 ballot. The secretary of state's office now has until Sept. 12 to count and certify the signatures. Last month, supporters brought in about 66,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot. The secretary of state's office, however, said that just 29,947 of the nearly 49,000 signatures counted were certified. Just over 17,000 were discarded because they had not been notarized. Between the new signatures and the notarized ones, supporters said they are confident the measure would be approved for the ballot. Under the proposed initiated act, a doctor would have to approve the drug's use. Eligible patients would be those with debilitating medical conditions such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS or another chronic or debilitating disease that causes severe pain. |
