A grassroots campaign calling for
repeal of Nevada's ban on gay marriage launched Thursday.
A coalition of groups launched Freedom
Nevada with press conferences in Las Vegas and Reno.
“It really isn't complicated. Love
is love,” Vivian Wright-Bolton, who is in a committed same-sex
relationship, told the AP.
Nevada lawmakers last year took the
first step in a multi-year process to repeal Nevada's ban. A second
vote is needed in 2015 before voters in 2016 get to decide whether to
change the state constitution to allow gay couples to marry.
The coalition's launch comes the same
week as Nevada decided to drop its defense in a legal challenge to
the ban.
(Related: Nevada
withdraws defense of gay marriage ban that invoked bigamy, incest.)
Reno Mayor Bob Cashell said that
allowing gay couples to marry could increase tourism.
“To be competitive we need to
continue to welcome a diversity of business to our great state,”
Cashell, a Republican, is
quoted as saying by the AP. “For somebody who has been married
49 years, I can't imagine someone telling me I couldn't marry the
person I love.”
Freedom Nevada members include the ACLU
of Nevada, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, Freedom to
Marry and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT
rights advocate.