When the dust settled after the election on Nov. 7, many were quick to point to the rejection of Proposition 107 as a sign that Arizona's voters weren't against the idea of gay marriage. They trumpeted the fact that Arizona was the only state to vote down such a measure and cracked open their celebratory champagne.
The latest polling done by a group at KAET-8 indicates otherwise.
For those who have forgotten, or don't follow politics, Proposition 107 would have amended our state constitution to prevent benefits from being given by the state to anyone not in a traditional man-woman marriage.
With a pound of cleverness and an ounce of cynicism, opponents to the proposition refrained from framing the proposition as a "gay marriage" amendment, instead universalizing by asserting that unmarried heterosexual partners would also be unable to collect benefits.
Judging by the fact that a majority of those who voted against the proposition gave reasons having nothing to do with gay marriage, anti-107 advocates had the right idea.
Meanwhile, only 8 percent of voters voted down the proposition because they were explicitly for the legalization of gay marriage.
Whether you're for or against gay marriage, the decision sends some pretty mixed signals when one considers the typical arguments against giving homosexual couples the same rights as heterosexual ones.
The typical reasoning is that gay partners could never contribute to social stability and order like heterosexual couples can.
Ignoring the validity of such a claim in the face of depressingly high divorce rates, one has to wonder what was going through the minds of the 30 percent of voters who voted down the proposition on the basis that it was wrong to deny benefits to domestic partners.
Granted, some of the survey-takers could have thought that domestic partners included homosexual partners. But for those who didn't, what sort of message does it send to say that unmarried straight couples deserve rights that unmarried gay couples don't?
We are living in a time of changing technology and changing conceptions of what American society should look like. Many of our values are colored by grays, where before we only saw black and white.
When it comes to equality, however, the state and its voters should be willing to take a firm stand - for everyone, homosexual and heterosexual alike.
