COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio LGBTQ+ advocates have been approved to start collecting signatures to put marriage equality and equal rights protections on the ballot.
On Friday, Attorney General Dave Yost certified two separate constitutional amendment proposals: one would remove a provision from the state Constitution that prohibits same-sex marriage, and the other would prohibit discrimination by state and local governments because of race, sex, pregnancy status, sexual orientation, disability or other attributes.
Ohio Equal Rights, which is running both amendment campaigns, was required to put forward two proposals instead of one that focused on all LGBTQ+ rights. Republicans on the Ohio Ballot Board said that same-sex marriage was fundamentally different than transgender rights.
Ohio follows federal law regarding marriage equality. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have the fundamental right to marry.
But the state constitution has never been updated to reflect that. This citizen-led proposal would repeal the provision saying that "only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions."
In 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas said that the Supreme Court of the United States should reconsider landmark cases such as Obergefell. This helped push forward this amendment, organizers told me in July.
Because they already met with the ballot board in July, they were given the go-ahead by politicians that they wouldn't need to return if it was split up as the board recommended, one of the Ohio Equal Rights team members told us Friday.
The team did not say which ballot they are aiming for, but they will need to collect about 415,000 signatures for each amendment, they said.
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