Opponents of gay marriage in Ohio have
started organizing to defend the state's ban.
Marriage equality supporters earlier
this year began an effort to repeal Ohio's 2004 voter-approved
constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.
The group Freedom to Marry Ohio is collecting signatures to put the
question on next year's ballot.
The
Columbus Dispatch reported that the Cincinnati-based group
which led the 2004 campaign in favor of the ban, Citizens for
Community Values (CCV), has started soliciting donations to defend
the amendment.
“As the military prepares for war, so
must we!” Phil Burress, head of CCV, said in an email to
supporters.
“[T]he homosexual activists have
begun a petition campaign to repeal the Ohio 2004 Marriage Amendment
that defines marriage between one man and one woman and replace it
with verbiage to legalize same-sex marriage in Ohio,” he said.
Burress added that if successful “homosexuality and same-sex
marriage” would be taught in the public schools “beginning in the
first grade,” and that it would permit “people to be fired from
their jobs for expressing religious objections to same-sex marriage …
and churches and religious people who don't believe in same-sex
marriage to be demonized, harassed and threatened.”