Every time the homophobes put one of those all embracing anti-same sex marriage amendments forward, the ones that ban Any legal recognition whatsoever of same sex couples, they take pains to reassure the public that their amendment isn’t intended to strip everything away from same sex couples.  Oh no…they say…it’s only about keeping marriage between a man and a woman.  The gays will still have rights too, they claim.  Just not the right to marry.

They lie.

Court rules gay couples can’t receive health insurance benefits

Public universities and governments can’t provide health insurance to the partners of gay employees without violating the state constitution, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Friday.

A three-judge panel said a 2004 voter-approved ban on gay marriage also applies to same-sex domestic partner benefits.

"The marriage amendment’s plain language prohibits public employers from recognizing same-sex unions for any purpose," the court said.

The decision reverses a 2005 ruling from an Ingham County judge who said universities and governments could provide the benefits.

A constitutional amendment passed by Michigan voters in November 2004 made the union between a man and a woman the only agreement recognized as a marriage "or similar union for any purpose." Those six words led to a fight over benefits for gay couples.

Gay couples and others had argued the public intended to ban gay marriage but not block benefits for domestic partners.

But the court said: "It is a cornerstone of a democratic form of government to assume that a free people act rationally in the exercise of power, are presumed to know what they want, and to have understood the proposition submitted to them in all of its implications, and by their approval vote to have determined that the proposal is for the public good and expresses the free opinion of a sovereign people."

Dig it.  This is what the bigots behind the amendment were telling the public before the vote:

In Michigan, Citizens for Protection of Marriage repeatedly stated in its literature and in press interviews that a ban on same–sex marriage would not affect domestic partnership benefits.

“This has nothing to do with taking benefits away,” Marlene Elwell, campaign director, told USA Today on October 15, 2004. “This is about marriage between a man and a woman.”

The campaign’s communications director was equally adamant. The proposal would have no effect on gay couples, Kristina Hemphill told the Holland Sentinel. “This amendment has nothing to do with benefits,” she said.

They were saying this, even as they were pushing an amendment whose text clearly read:

To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose."

And that’s standard operating procedure for the religious right: lie through your teeth…Jesus won’t mind if you’re doing it for him. 

But look at what the judges decided.  Even though the rhetoric coming out of the mouths of the amendment supporters was telling the voters one thing, the voters are assumed to have meant to vote for what they were repeatedly told they weren’t voting for anyway.

And, in a sense, you can’t blame the judges here, because it’s right fucking there in the text of the amendment: "…the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose."  What part of "For Any Purpose" didn’t you understand when you voted?

And you have to figure that a lot of voters Did intend this result, even as they were nodding their heads and saying to themselves yes, yes, yes…this isn’t taking anything at all away from the homos…  Hypocrisy is how you save face, when you’re busy putting a knife in your neighbor’s back.  But given the results in Arizona, I expect that just enough people were fooled by the rhetoric, that the amendment might have failed if they saw clearly what it was they were voting for.  Maybe. 

And of course, that’s exactly why the religious right lies.