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Ernesto Portillo Jr.: Art gives young muralists new hope Community notes Community notes A life story that is worth sharing Neto's Tucson : Oft-deployed parents manage to hold down fort Community notes Taxpayer Watch: East Side property deserves eyesore award They hope food will roll in Ernesto Portillo Jr.: Area's media pioneers still connect over coffeeHorses helped heal the rider

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RANCHO RESORT
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Counselor

For the past six months, Ray and Kathy Green of Marana have driven every Thursday night to the Wingspan office near Tucson High School.

Amid the bustle inside Tucson's support center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, the straight married couple work on an array of needed tasks.

The Greens are not alone on Thursday nights at the Wingspan office at 425 E. Seventh Street. They join other volunteers to do the many grass-roots jobs needed to heighten awareness over the "Protect Marriage Arizona" amendment.

The amendment would ban same-sex marriages and would prohibit state and local government agencies from granting domestic-partnership benefits to unmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples.

"We have been married for 25 years and enjoy the benefits of marriage, but the amendment would deny those same benefits to other couples," said Kathy Green, a teachers aide, who described her husband and herself as "the straightest people on the planet."

Thursday a rainbow of volunteers prepared for a rally Downtown later this month that will attract opponents to the proposed amendment, which could be placed on the 2006 ballot.

These days the opponents' task is educating Southern Arizonans about the damage many Arizona families will endure under the proposed state constitutional amendment.

Think of those senior citizens who live as man and wife but for their own reasons are not married, said Ray Green, a computer security specialist at Raytheon Missile Systems. Seniors and others who live in common-law marriages will be affected, too, under the amendment, he said.

The online text of the amendment states "no legal status for unmarried persons shall be created or recognized by this state or its political subdivisions that is similar to marriage."

Amendment supporters need to submit 183,917 valid voters' signatures by July 6 to the Arizona Secretary of State's Office.

"This will probably affect more straight people," said Jessica Knutson, outreach field manager for Arizona Together, a coalition of gay and straight groups opposed to the proposal.

Supporters of the amendment, largely based in conservative Christian churches, insist a constitutional amendment is needed to prevent legal challenges to Arizona's current law prohibiting marriage between two people of the same sex who love one another and want a monogamous relationship with the same financial, legal and tax benefits given to straight couples.

For Dea Brasgalla, a lesbian, the amendment is an assault on the civil rights of people who already have few rights and many barriers to equality. The proposal is a "meadow muffin," she said.

Yes, the amendment stinks because it's part of a nationwide campaign waged to punish people because of their sexual orientation. And for that some Arizonans want to deny gays and lesbians protection given under Tucson's domestic-partnership ordinance, which would be invalidated by the amendment, opponents contend.

Terri and Dick Bibbens have three adult children. One daughter is a lesbian. "Why shouldn't she have the same opportunities?" ask the Bibbenses, who raised their children Roman Catholic.

That is the heart of the misnamed amendment. It will deny benefits and privileges to select people while others are allowed to enjoy them. Call it the amendment with no heart.