On Nov. 3, 2020, Nevada became the first in the country to protect same-sex marriage rights in its Constitution, thanks to Nevada voters.
“Question 2 removes existing language in the Nevada Constitution that ‘only a marriage between a male and female person shall be recognized and given effect in this state,'” the Nevada Current reported before the 2020 election. “It replaces that now-unenforceable language with new language stating that Nevada ‘shall recognize marriages and issue marriage licenses to couples regardless of gender’ and ‘all legal valid marriages must be treated equally under the law.’”
The Nevada Current said there was no declared opposition to 2020’s Question 2, in part because the amendment declared that “religious organizations and members of the clergy have the right to refuse to solemnize a marriage.”
The vote—with 62.4 percent of voters approving—was largely viewed as symbolic, because the U.S. Supreme Court had legalized gay marriage nationwide with its June 26, 2015, ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Just eighteen years before that 2020 vote, Nevadans felt very differently.
In 2000 and 2002, Nevada voters were asked to decide whether to ban same-sex marriage in the state Constitution. That citizen-led initiative, also called Question 2, passed with 69.6 percent of the vote in 2000, and 67.2 percent in 2002, thanks in part to major financial support from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In the lead-up to the 2002 election, for the Aug. 15, 2002, print edition cover, photo editor David Robert photographed advertising coordinator/cover model Jenanne Bull—in a wedding gown and holding a rifle—to accompany Deidre Pike’s story, headlined “Protecting Marriage,” about Question 2.
Here’s a link to Deidre’s story in its entirety. The first section:
At one moment during her older daughter’s recent wedding festivities in Truckee, Holly Wilson turned to her younger daughter and said, “I wish we could do this for you.”
Wilson’s younger daughter, who’s lived in Incline Village with her gay partner for five years, has opted not to have a commitment ceremony. She and her partner are not inclined to be outspoken about their relationship. Wilson thinks that’s due to their lifestyle.
“They both have their jobs, their perks,” she says. “It’s not a situation where one is dependent on the other. … But there are gay couples with stay-at-home dads or moms who don’t get the privileges [of a legally recognized marriage or civil union].”
While Wilson’s older married daughter will be able to take advantage of joint insurance, filing joint tax returns with her husband, family visitation rights if hospitalization should occur and shared property rights, her younger daughter’s lesbian relationship will remain unrecognized by the state of Nevada.
Yes, it’s time once again to discuss same-gender marriage in Nevada—or, more specifically, the initiative on this November’s general-election ballot, Question 2, which seeks to add language to the Nevada Constitution defining marriage as something that can be legal and “given effect” only between a man and a woman. About 70 percent of voters approved the question in 2000, but the citizens’ initiative has to be approved one more time before it can be sent to the Nevada Legislature.
No matter that state law already defines marriage as a guy-gal thing. The move is an offensive play in Nevada’s version of the nationwide battle over who gets to define the social norm.
Richard Ziser, leader of the group backing the initiative, the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage, says he started the group in 1999 in response to what he perceived as threats that same-sex marriage advocates would introduce legislation to redefine marriage in the 2001 Nevada Legislature.
“We thought we’d better move forward, before these guys get too far along, and stop them from what they’re trying to do,” Ziser says. “We didn’t want to give them a chance. We felt it was important, instead of being on the defensive, to move on the offensive side and start protecting Nevada law.”
Later in the piece, Ziser—who would later get creamed as the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in 2004, getting just 35.1 percent of the vote compared to Harry Reid’s 61.1 percent—explained why marriage should, in his opinion, be “protected”:
Ziser’s been married for 28 years and has three kids. His youngest just graduated from high school and will start at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in a couple of weeks. He defends his definition of marriage as something that can happen only between a man and a woman as both a “natural” thing and a publicly supported philosophy.
“It’s a matter of someone [wanting to] redefine something that’s existed as long as we know and changing marriage into something that it was never intended to be,” he says. “The sacred institution of marriage needs to remain what it is.”
But who gets to define marriage?
“The definition of marriage has been set in stone for an awfully long time,” Ziser says.
How did it get set in stone?
“How about by nature?” Ziser answers. “Natural law just demands it. It’s a natural union.”
Ziser, apparently, is still around. Sharron Angle listed him as an endorsement on the … uh, rather sparse website for her failed campaign to become the Republican secretary of state nominee earlier this year.
Anyway … nearly six years after that 2020 vote, it’s become clear that the vote was not just symbolic. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court shockingly overturned Roe v. Wade, and a lot of the same people behind that decades-long overturn effort have now set their sights on the narrow 5-4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.
“If Missouri or Mississippi or Montana wishes to restrict eligibility for marriage licenses to opposite-sex partners, the Supreme Court should correct its eleven-year-old mistake and acknowledge and honor states’ legitimate constitutional authority to so define marriage,” wrote Robert P. George last month in the National Review.
—Jimmy Boegle
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