Nevada Marriage Amendment, Question 2 (2002)

From Ballotpedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Voting on
Marriage and Family
Wedding rings.jpg
Ballot Measures
By state
By year
Not on ballot

The Nevada Marriage Amendment, also known as Question 2 or the Protection of Marriage Initiative, was an initiated constitutional amendment on the November 7, 2002 election ballot in Nevada, where it was approved.

This was the second vote on proposed amendment, the first being in 2000. The amendment took effect with the second approval by voters.

Aftermath

Ninth Circuit Court

On October 7, 2014, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the same-sex marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada in a unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel. In its decision, the court said:[1]

“ Idaho and Nevada's marriage laws, by preventing same-sex couples from marrying and refusing to recognize same-sex marriages celebrated elsewhere, impose profound legal, financial, social and psychic harms on numerous citizens of those states...These harms are not inflicted on opposite-sex couples.

[2]

”

U.S. Supreme Court

See also: Obergefell v. Hodges

On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution in the case Obergefell v. Hodges. This ruling overturned all voter-approved constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.[3]

Justice Anthony Kennedy authored the opinion and Justices Ruth Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito each authored a dissent.

The concluding paragraph of the court's majority opinion read:

“ No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.[2] ”

—Opinion of the Court in Obergefell v. Hodges[4]


Election results

Question 2 (Marriage)
OverturnedotOverturned Case:Sevcik v. Sandoval 
ResultVotesPercentage
Yes 337,197 67.20%
No164,57332.80%

Official results via: Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau - Research Division

Text of measure

The language that appeared on the ballot:

Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to provide that: "Only a marriage between a male and female person shall be recognized and given effect in this state?"[5]

The language that appeared in the voter's guide:

EXPLANATION
The proposed amendment, if passed, would create a new section to Article 1 of the Nevada Constitution providing that, "Only a marriage between a male and female person shall be recognized and given effect in this state."[5]

Related measures

The following are measures that banned or attempted to ban same-sex marriages. Note that a number of them have been overturned. Many historical marriage and family-related ballot measures regard the definition of legal marriage. The debate often revolved around whether marriage should be legally defined as the “union of one male and one female” or the “union of two persons [regardless of sex].” Voters chose to define marriage as between “one male and one female” in the following 30 states. The first constitutional prohibition was in 1998, and the latest one occurred in May 2012. All bans on same-sex marriage were overturned in the 2015 United States Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges.


See also

BP-Initials-UPDATED.png
 		Suggest a link

External links

References

  1. ↑ USA Today, "More gay marriage band fall in Idaho and Nevada," October 8, 2014
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributed to the original source.
  3. ↑ NPR, "Supreme Court Declares Same-Sex Marriage Legal In All 50 States," June 26, 2015
  4. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Obergefell v. Hodges," June 26, 2015
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau - Research Division, 2002 Ballot Question Guide with Election Results
v • d • e
2002 ballot measures 2002 ballot measures
• Alabama 2002 ballot measures • Alaska 2002 ballot measures • Arizona 2002 ballot measures • Arkansas 2002 ballot measures • California 2002 ballot propositions • Colorado 2002 ballot measures • Florida 2002 ballot measures • Georgia 2002 ballot measures • Hawaii 2002 ballot measures • Idaho 2002 ballot measures • Kentucky 2002 ballot measures • Louisiana 2002 ballot measures • Maine 2002 ballot measures • Maryland 2002 ballot measures • Massachusetts 2002 ballot measures • Michigan 2002 ballot measures • Mississippi 2002 ballot measures • Missouri 2002 ballot measures • Montana 2002 ballot measures • Nebraska 2002 ballot measures • Nevada 2002 ballot measures • New Hampshire 2002 ballot measures • New Mexico 2002 ballot measures • North Carolina 2002 ballot measures • North Dakota 2002 ballot measures • Ohio 2002 ballot measures • Oklahoma 2002 ballot measures • Oregon 2002 ballot measures • Pennsylvania 2002 ballot measures • Rhode Island 2002 ballot measures • South Carolina 2002 ballot measures • South Dakota 2002 ballot measures • Tennessee 2002 ballot measures • Texas 2002 ballot measures • Utah 2002 ballot measures • Vermont 2002 ballot measures • Virginia 2002 ballot measures • Washington 2002 ballot measures • West Virginia 2002 ballot measures • Wyoming 2002 ballot measures •
Retrieved from "http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Nevada_Marriage_Amendment,_Question_2_(2002)&oldid=5151394"