Insufficient financial support has
prompted Mark Olmstead to quit an effort to overturn Colorado's gay
marriage ban.
Voters in the state approved a
constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a heterosexual
union in 2006.
In July, the 3-member board charged
with approving proposed ballot questions voted unanimously in favor
of Olmstead's proposed question for the 2012 ballot. To secure a
spot on the 2012 ballot, proponents needed to collect roughly 86,000
signatures by January.
Olmstead, 19, a political science
student at Seattle University, said he decided to withdraw his
initiative after no organization stepped forward to fund the
campaign.
“I realized this would be a very
costly and time consuming campaign,” Olmstead
told gay weekly Out Front Colorado. “It would be very
difficult to pull off by myself.”
“I'm still going to be fighting for
[marriage equality],” he added. “Maybe in a different way. A
ballot initiative is just so hard to pull off.”
A civil unions bill, which was
sponsored by gay Denver Democrats Rep. Mark Ferrandino and Senator
Pat Steadman, died in a House committee earlier this year after
passage in the Senate.