Arizona Group Drops 2014 Marriage Plan

The plan to place marriage equality on Arizona's 2014 ballot has been dropped.

Equal Marriage Arizona, which filed paperwork in June to gather signatures for the ballot measure, announced Monday that it will shut down its campaign. “The various LGBT advocacy groups in the state and nationally announced they weren’t going to throw their support behind the initiative,” said Equal Marriage Arizona co-chair Erin Ogletree Simpson, a retired Tucson attorney who chairs the Log Cabin Republicans of Arizona. “Without their help, we aren’t able to do it.”

Ogletree Simpson said there were differing opinions about strategy on when would be the best time to pursue a same-sex marriage initiative. The advocacy groups thought it would be best to wait until 2016, which would give them two more years to sway voters and a presidential election year, which tends to draw more voters to the polls. “They didn’t feel like Arizona was ready for equal marriage in 2014,” Ogletree Simpson said of the advocacy groups. “I’m just happy our effort has prompted a focus from the various group to look at 2016 and start putting together a strategy.”

Arizona's Proposition 102 successfully placed a ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution in 2008.