Gay marriage advocates may take petitions to voting polls
By JOAN HAINES Chronicle Staff Writer

Voters may find advocates at the polls Tuesday asking them to sign -- or refrain from signing -- petitions to add language to the Montana Constitution defining marriage only as a union between a man and a woman.

Solicitations concerning Constitutional Initiative 96, which would ban same-sex marriage, are legal as long as voters are not prevented from casting their ballots, said Janice Doggett, chief legal counsel for the Montana secretary of state.

However, election officials can restrict where petition gatherers are located "as long as they're fair to everyone," Doggett said Friday

And when voters are approached at the polls, they can always say they're not interested in talking with advocates.


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Visitation-rights case raises same-sex issue
Michael Kiefer
The Arizona Republic


When David and Brandy Jo Riepe divorced in 2000, they agreed to share custody of their 4-year-old son.

After the divorce the boy lived mostly with his father, spending one night a week and alternate weekends with his mother.

A year later, David remarried. His new wife, Janette Rae Smith Riepe, assumed a significant role in the young child's life, loving him, feeding him and even becoming involved in his classroom.
Then tragedy struck: That fall, David was killed in a traffic accident.

The child went to live with Brandy, his biological mother, who did not allow any contact with the stepmother, Janette.

What followed was an unorthodox legal battle over visitation rights. It bounced through the Coconino County Superior Court and eventually led the Arizona Court of Appeals to look at different ways to define "parenting" for the case.