A broad coalition of organizations and individuals announced today that the Vote “No,” Virginia! campaign will be launched at the Equality Virginia Commonwealth Dinner Saturday night.
The Commonwealth Coalition will be working to defeat the Marshall-Newman constitutional amendment that would prohibit the legal recognition of all unmarried relationships.
The Coalition has a preliminary website up, with information about what you can do to help with the defeat of this sad mess of an amendment on November 7. Included is a list of ten reasons to vote no that you can share with people who may not realize all of the consequences for Virginians that would result.
A press release from Coalition partner Equality Virginia follows.
THE COMMONWEALTH COALITION LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN TO DEFEAT THE MARSHALL/NEWMAN AMENDMENT
For more information on The Coalition go to www.votenova.org.
(Richmond, April 6) — On Saturday, April 8, the Commonwealth Coalition will launch its campaign to prevent the passage of an amendment to the Virginia bill of rights proposed by Delegate Bob Marshall and Senator Newman. In line with other extreme measures proposed by these legislators, the text of the Marshall/Newman amendment, which will be on the ballot in November, proposes a sweeping ban on any and all legal recognition of unmarried relationships — gay and straight, including a ban on civil unions and domestic partnerships.
The Coalition’s announcement will be made in remarks to the more than 1300 attendees expected at the Third Annual Commonwealth Dinner, hosted by Equality Virginia. Dyana Mason, Executive Director of founding Coalition partner Equality Virignia, will introduce The Coalition’s director and campaign manager, Claire Guthrie Gastanaga at the event.
Gastañaga said, “I’m very excited to be heading the efforts to prevent passage of this amendment. The Commonwealth Coalition and its coalition partners have already experienced widespread support, even at this very early stage of the campaign. We have no doubt that there are a million Virginia voters who will recognize that many thousands of Virginia businesses and families will be adversely affected if this ill-considered and unnecessary proposal becomes law.”
Mason is confident that The Commonwealth Coalition will expand and build on Equality Virginia’s previous work.
Mason said, “Equality Virginia is pleased to be playing such a major role by launching this campaign at our Annual Commonwealth Dinner and by contributing our substantial resources to this effort. We have worked hard to build a strong grassroots foundation and look forward to combining our energy with that of other organizations and individuals in The Commonwealth Coalition to protect the rights of all unmarried gay and straight Virginians.”
The Commonwealth Coalition is a non-partisan alliance of Virginia businesses, legal scholars, community and religious organizations, and individual voters who have as their common purpose the defeat of the Marshall/Newman amendment. The Commonwealth Coalition’s campaign will include a direct door-to-door initiative and a call center with volunteers across Virginia educating voters one-on-one about the amendment. With the help of groups like Equality Virginia, the inter-faith organization People of Faith for Equality in Virginia (PFEV), the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance and many individuals, The Commonwealth Coalition will reach out to all fair-minded people and urge them to vote against this amendment.
For more information about this and other issues affecting the GLBT community, please contact the Equality Virginia office at (804) 643 4816 or visit The Commonwealth Coalition web site at www.votenova.org .