Several GLBT related articles appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star over the Memorial Holiday Weekend.

For better or for worse
Same-Sex Marriage & Domestic Partnership

Guest View: Lenna Pierce, Brave new world - GLBT Youth

Lincoln High attitudes toward gays an accepting one

Leon Satterfield: Amendment banning same-sex marriage is a civil rights travesty

State petition drive latest attempt to ban same-sex marriages

Domestic-partner benefits bogged down at UNL

Certain economic benefits available to married couples

Source: Lincoln Journal Star

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Supporters of a petition drive that will begin Wednesday want to eliminate any chance Nebraska would ever recognize marriages between two men or two women.

About 1,500 Nebraskans have volunteered to circulate the petitions, which ask that a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages be placed on the November ballot.

The petitions are at the printer, about $20,000 has been raised and volunteers are expected to begin collecting signatures Wednesday, said Guyla Mills, chairman of the Defense of the Family Committee, the group organized to run the petition drive.

The amendment language is simple and intended to make sure that Nebraska will not recognize either a marriage or any civil union between two men or two women, Mills said.

It reads:
"Only marriage between a man and woman shall be valid or recognized in Nebraska. The uniting of two persons of the same sex in a civil union, domestic partnership, or other similar same-sex relationship, shall not be valid or recognized in Nebraska."

Many of the volunteers are "people of faith," although the effort is not limited to church groups, Mills said. Randy Ritnour of Tecumseh is committee treasurer, and Lincoln attorney Jim McFarland helped organize the group.

"We are really looking forward to this, and we believe we have the manpower and the commitment to get this on the ballot," Mills said.

To qualify, the group must collect about 105,000 valid signatures by July 7.

"The secretary of state has told us to go for 130,000, but we have set a goal of 150,000," Mills said.

The group also needs to collect about $50,000 in donations by early June to cover early costs of the petition drive.

Although it is assumed that Nebraska's marriage laws apply only to marriages between a man and a woman, there is still a need to "get this clearly defined," Mills said. Congress has left the decision on whether to recognize same-sex unions up to individual states.

Supporters of the ban on same-sex unions have tried to get clarifying legislation passed in the Unicameral but have been thwarted by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who mounted a successful filibuster several years ago.

"When the Legislature fails to act, the recourse we have is the petition process," Mills said Monday.

Source: Lincoln Journal Star, By Nancy Hicks

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