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Cincinnati City Council Passes Marriage Equality Resolution

Cincinnati has become the seventh city in the state to take a stand supporting marriage equality.  

The City Council this afternoon passed the resolution, sponsored by council member Chris Seelbach.  The vote comes about a month before the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a case involving a Cincinnati native.  A statement from the plaintiff, Jim Obergefell, was read at this afternoon's city council meeting.  He is fighting to have the state recognize his marriage on his husband's death certificate. Why Marriage Matters campaign manager Christopher Geggie says the resolution's passage in Cincinnati marks a milestone in the issue of marriage equality in Ohio.  

"In 2004, when both HB 272 and Issue 1, that is to say the statutory and the constitutional bans on marriage equality, when those were voted into place, Cincinnati actually repealed Article 12, which kind of opened the door for more LGBT protections.  In that decade since then Chris Seelbach, the first openly gay city council member was elected; the city began to offer benefits to city employees'  domestic partners; they set up the domestic partner registry; and just this past year Cincinnati also received a 100% on the HRC's Equality Index.  So what we've seen is that - over the course of a decade - Cincinnati as well as Ohio has gone on this big journey towards coming to know and accepting the LGBT community not only as their friends, but as their family as well."  

Columbus City Council passed a similar resolution in December.  Geggie notes that the business community in Ohio is also getting on board; noting that Fortune 500 companies like Proctor and Gamble, Nationwide Insurance, and Cardinal Health singing an amicus brief to the US Supreme court, supporting marriage equality.

 

A native of Chicago, naturalized citizen of Cincinnati and resident of Columbus, Alison attended Earlham College and the Ohio State University. She has equal passion for Midwest history, hockey and Slavic poetry.
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