ARK. ACLU VS MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: From the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

What voters will see on the ballot when they decide on a proposed Arkansas constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is "purposefully vague, misleading and nonsensical," the state Supreme Court was told Wednesday.

The Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union told the court that the measure's popular name falls short of the court's requirement that ballot names be "intelligible, honest and impartial."

The ACLU has asked the Supreme Court to have "An Amendment Concerning Marriage" removed from the state's Nov. 2 ballot. ...

The committee's argument described the proposed amendment as "written in perfectly intelligible English" that is sufficiently clear.

The ACLU is merely opposed to the amendment's "policy" and "are determined for it not to be voted on by the people," the committee's argument said. ...

The ACLU said it filed the suit to "insure that Arkansans are given a fair and accurate ballot title, one that is free of misleading tendencies and partisan coloring."

The Supreme Court is not the proper place to debate the "wisdom or folly" of the amendment, Sklar said. "What's relevant to the court is the soundness of our legal argument," Sklar said. "And our legal argument is that the language is unclear."

The ACLU argued that the amendment's language barring "legal status for unmarried persons which is identical or substantially similar to marital status" is vague. The term "marital status" does not always refer to being married, Sklar said, and is often used to define whether or not an individual is single.

"We have a team of lawyers, and we don't know what it means," Sklar said.Chris Stewart, executive director of the Arkansas Marriage Amendment Committee, said the term "marital status" implied marriage and that he thought the language was clear. ...

The attorney general's brief argued that because the entire amendment is included in the ballot title, "there is no credible argument" that voters will lack the necessary information "as to what they are asked to vote upon." ...

That ballot title, which is identical to the actual language of the amendment, reads: "A proposed amendment to the Arkansas Constitution providing that marriage consists only of the union of one man and one woman; that legal status for unmarried persons which is identical or substantially similar to marital status shall not be valid or recognized in Arkansas, except that the legislature may recognize a common law marriage from another state between a man and a woman; and that the legislature has the power to determine the capacity of persons to marry, subject to this amendment, and the legal rights, obligations, privileges and immunities of marriage."

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posted by Eve at 8:18 PM VOTE

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