DC Marriage Equality Foes Lose Bid to put Civil Rights to Popular Vote

From On Top:
Opponents of gay marriage in the District of Columbia have suffered another setback in their ongoing effort to prevent a gay marriage law from being approved.

In a unanimous opinion released Tuesday, the city's Board of Elections and Ethics denied the group Stand4MarriageDC.com from putting a gay marriage question on the ballot. The proposed one-sentence initiative says, “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in the District of Columbia.”

“We have considered all of the testimony presented to the Board and understand the desire to place this question on the ballot,” Board Chairman Errol R. Arthur said in a statement.

“However, the laws of the District of Columbia preclude us from this initiative to move forward,” he added.

The board's ruling said the initiative “would authorize discrimination prohibited under the [District's] Human Rights Act (HRA).”

Read the full story here.