Concerns from leading LGBT advocates have stalled an effort to
repeal Arizona's gay marriage ban.
According to the Arizona
Capitol Times, Equal Marriage Arizona has set aside for now
its campaign to repeal Arizona's 2008 voter-approved constitutional
amendment defining marriage as a heterosexual union.
The ballot initiative was announced in June and paperwork was
filed by Phoenix businessman Warren Meyer and retired attorney Erin
Ogletree Simpson, chairwoman of the Arizona chapter of the Log Cabin
Republicans.
Gay activists, however, have questioned the campaign's timing and
the motives of Tim Mooney, who is behind the Arizona effort and a
similar campaign in Florida, titled Equal Marriage Florida.
“We need the backing and support of all of the organizations
that have been working on these matters to go forward. … We need
their support,” Simpson said.
Sheila Kloefkorn, a member of the national board of the Human
Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights advocate,
said that HRC wasn't prepared to lend its support.
“We will not [support the campaign] and I don't know of any
organizations that would at this point,” Kloefkorn said.
According to The
Huffington Post, Mooney, a Republican strategist, in 2004
worked on Utah's campaign to ban gay nuptials and helped put Rick
Perry, an opponent of marriage equality, in the Texas Governor's
Mansion.
“At the end of the day, this is a business for Tim Mooney, and
for everyone else involved, it's our lives,” Kloefkorn said.
“One of the concerns that activists are always going to have is
whether or not an individual has a profit motive and will put their
profit above the good strategic best interest of our movement,”
Fred Sainz, vice president of communications and marketing at HRC,
told The Huffington Post.
Activists who have met with Mooney have said that he claims to
have had a change of heart since 2004.
According
to a poll released earlier this year, 55 percent of Arizonans
favor marriage equality, while 35 percent remain opposed.
(Related: Jerome,
Arizona approves civil unions for gay couples.)