Releases.USNewsWire.com
Washington, Nov. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ — As voting machines from the 2006 midterm election are returned to storage for another Congressional session, members of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) are celebrating key accomplishments in the race and identifying and focusing their efforts on the many obstacles that still lie ahead.
“The people of Arizona are the heroes of the night,” said Jody M. Huckaby, executive director of PFLAG. “They made a monumental effort to defeat the movement to turn their state constitution into a tool for discrimination against our gay and lesbian loved ones. Arizona residents saw that equality is a family value too, and brought that belief to the ballot box.”
The night, however, was not without its losses. In seven other states — Virginia, Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Dakota, Iowa, South Carolina and Colorado — anti-equality amendments did pass, albeit by smaller margins than expected in some areas. Colorado also saw an effort to authorize domestic partnerships defeated.