# Florida Amendment 2: Gay Marriage.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-amendment-2-gay-marriage/468611>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 19, 2008, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-amendment-2-gay-marriage/468611 "2008-10-19T03:42:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2008, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-amendment-2-gay-marriage/468611/41 "2008-11-01T01:51:22Z")

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Vote for Prop 2. If you don’t, marriage will be **destroyed!**

Which means…all married couples will be unmarried? Mom & Pop can no longer sleep together? Cohabitation is illegal? No marriage licenses will be issued? All marriages are dissolved? WTF?

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2008, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-amendment-2-gay-marriage/468611/42 "2008-11-01T01:57:10Z")

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> [@vivalostwages](#):
>
> Still more letters to the editor of the local paper are pouring in from CA Prop 8 supporters claiming that Family, the Foundation of Society, will be torn apart if gays marry, because they don’t propagate.
> 
> To which I say, SFW? We don’t need any more propagation than there already is.
> 
> There are other obvious arguments as well.

Such as, if they **don’t** get married, they still won’t propagate. No difference to the population’s growth rate either way.

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**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2008, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-amendment-2-gay-marriage/468611/43 "2008-11-01T02:01:25Z")

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> [@Miller](#):
>
> Florida is a side-show to try to energize the fundy base. It doesn’t really mean anything.

The way I see it, the last half of the amendment, which also prohibits anything “substantially similar” to gay marriage (I dont remember the exact words,) would also make civil unions not only illegal but also unconstitutional.

Since Americans are much more likely to support civil unions than gay marriage, then if my interpretation of the last half of Amendment 2 is correct, enshrining this in the Florida Constitution means that enacting civil unions would be much more difficult, as you’d have to overturn an amendment rather than pass a law or get a court decision. I do agree that w/r/t Marriage it is largely meaningless, since voting that in would be unlikely in Florida at any rate.

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**Author:** ![PerditaX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@PerditaX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PerditaX)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2008, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-amendment-2-gay-marriage/468611/44 "2008-11-01T13:56:13Z")

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> [@Bear\_Nenno](#):
>
> _This amendment protects marriage as the legal  
> union of only one man and one woman as husband  
> and wife and provides that no other legal union that  
> is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent  
> thereof shall be valid or recognized.  
> The direct financial impact this amendment will have  
> on state and local government revenues and  
> expenditures cannot be determined, but is expected  
> to be minor._

I saw a TV ad in Tampa with a man and woman who were domestic partners. Its take was that the part about “legal union that is treated as a marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof” would nullify their status as well. I think they have a point.

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