HUFFINGTON
05.19.13
LOVE AND HATE
man nature. But so is wanting to
go your own way.”
BILL CLARK/CQ ROLL CALL/GETTY IMAGES
PHOENIX PUSHES BACK
When the civil union ordinance
passed in April, it made national
news, and Badal quickly began
to hear from other towns around
Arizona — Jerome, Guadalupe,
Tempe, Sedona and Star Valley
— that wanted to pass something
similar. “I had no idea so many
other communities would react
the way they did,” the mayor says.
“They wanted to know what they
could do — if they could use our
ordinance as a template.”
But there was also some resistance. Within 12 hours of the
ordinance passing, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne raised
concerns that Bisbee had usurped
some of the state’s powers, and
possibly violated a constitutional
amendment passed in 2008 that
defined marriage as “only a union
of one man and one woman.”
Horne threatened to sue to have
the new policy overturned.
Badal also encountered resistance from unexpected places.
“I’ve lived in Bisbee all my life,”
she says. “And some people I’ve
known for 40 or 50 years, they
just became so hateful. Hate directed at gays and lesbians, and
directed at me for doing this. I
Arizona
Attorney
General Tom
Horne raised
concerns
that Bisbee
had usurped
the state’s
powers by
passing the
civil union
ordinance.