HRC Blog

Last Friday, February 6, Wyoming’s House of Representatives resoundingly defeated a proposed amendment to the state constitution seeking to define marriage between a man and a woman as the only legal union recognized in the state.  Since this is a proposed constitutional amendment, it needed to gain the support of 2/3 of the House—40 out of the 60 representatives—in order to pass and move on to the Senate.  The proposed amendment couldn’t even gain a bare majority—35 of 60 representatives voted no. We’re thrilled by the vote and by the fact that a clear majority of Wyoming state representatives stood up against writing discrimination into the state constitution.  As we mentioned last Friday, several representatives in particular, including Reps. Cathy Connolly, Pat Childers, Roy Cohee, Keith Gingery, Pete Illoway, Sue Wallis, and Dan Zwonitzer, stood up against this measure.  For the representatives, this was not a partisan issue—both Republicans and Democrats voted against the amendment. Activists in Wyoming also deserve praise for this victory, including HRC members who responded to our alert and took action to contact their legislators and urge them to vote against the proposed amendment. Bob Spencer of Wyoming Equality worked especially hard to defeat the measure by lobbying members of the legislature to build opposition to the proposed amendment.  Bob is a member of the clergy and also an HRC member.   His report on what happened last week follows:

Greetings from Wyoming, Friends, we’re not all the way there yet in the fight for equality, but there’s still reason to call Wyoming the Equality State!  After a week of up and down actions and emotions, the Wyoming House of Representatives defeated the so-called Defense of Marriage Amendment by a resounding 35 to 25 vote last Friday, February 6. The build-up to the vote started last Tuesday when the House Judiciary Committee met to consider the proposed amendment to the state constitution.  The room and the hall outside was full of people waiting to testify on both sides of the issue. “WY Watch”, which works closely with Focus on the Family, was there in force to argue in favor of writing discrimination into the constitution.  (Focus on the Family had launched a telephone lobbying campaign aimed at voters in key legislative districts with the goal of building support for the amendment in the legislature). After 6 ½ hours of testimony, the committee voted 5 to 4 in favor of passing the resolution on to the House.  That was bad news, though not completely unexpected: the measure would now move to the House floor. I spent Wednesday and Thursday working to build opposition to the bill and enlisting allies to lobby against this resolution.  These, again, were long days of talking, and talking, and then talking some more to representatives and gathering information for our allies on the House floor.  The work was being done to prepare for a vote by the full House, which would require a 2/3 majority for the measure to pass -- 40 out of the 60 representatives in the House.  Our hopes were pinned on making sure at least 21 representatives voted against the amendment, but it looked like the vote would be very close. On Friday morning the resolution came up for a vote in the House.  It was a good sign when just  two representatives spoke in favor of the amendment while six spoke against it, including one I had talked with who initially seemed prepared to vote in favor of the measure.  This representative ended up speaking against the resolution and voted against it. The House voted three times—once by voice vote, then by a stand up count of votes, and finally by a roll call.  Each time, the vote was against the amendment.  The final vote was an amazing 35-20 against the amendment.  I was stunned and thrilled, as were my friends in the gallery.  Supporters of this discriminatory amendment hadn’t been able to get even a majority to vote for the amendment, let along the 2/3 needed to pass it. All of us at Wyoming Equality are thankful for our friends in and out of Wyoming, including at HRC, who have been there for us as we have worked so hard to defeat this resolution.  LGBT folks and our allies (of which there are so many) are grateful for all the work that has gone into this effort; the calls, the letters, the emails (including ones sent by HRC members in Wyoming), the one-on-one conversations, and the hours of leg work.  We are especially thankful for all those representatives who supported us throughout this time and especially by voting against discrimination last Friday. Bob Spencer Social Change Coordinator Wyoming Equality