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By Victoria Hansen
hasnenv@findlay.edu
Grassroots organization Equal Rights Ohio is collecting signatures to put two new issues on the November ballot.
The Ohio Equal Rights Amendment would create 12 new protected classes in the state and bar the state from enforcing any law or taking any action that infringes on their rights.
The protected classes listed in the Ohio Equal Rights Amendment are: “race, color, creed or religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression regardless of sex assigned at birth, pregnancy status, genetic information, disease status, age, disability, recovery status, familial status, ancestry, national origin, or military and veteran status.”
The second proposed amendment, the Ohio Right to Marry Amendment, would require the state to issue marriage licenses and recognize all marriages, regardless of race, sex, or gender identity.
“Keeping same sex marriage legal in Ohio is the biggest step in keeping our community from being erased,” Cruz Richard, sophomore equestrian studies and equine business double major and president of UNITED, wrote in an email interview. UNITED is the University of Findlay’s gay-straight alliance.
To appear on Ohio ballots this November, Ohio Equal Rights must collect 442,958 from at least half of Ohio’s 88 counties, equal to 10 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last gubernatorial election. If successful, the issues will be put on the ballot and voted on. If more than 50 percent of Ohioans vote in favor, they will pass.
The Ohio Equal Rights Amendment was originally one amendment, but the Ohio Ballot Board split it in two.
“It seems to me reasonable that there are voters in Ohio that may be supportive of repealing the marriage agreement, so to allow, in the Ohio constitution, the institution of marriage between any two loving couples that want to be together, but that may not want to support creating 12 new protected classes under a bunch of different listed circumstances,” said Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, according to the Ohio Capitol Journal.
Same-sex marriage is banned in Ohio under Article XV, Section 11, of the Ohio Constitution, which says, “Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions.” The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges ruled that the right to marry is guaranteed regardless of the gender of the people involved, overriding the Ohio law.
“There is so much fear in this country right now,” Richard said. “Who you want to love openly should never be one of those fears.”
