cofounder & President, ONE Community & ONE Community Foundation

Respect for Marriage Arizona has to be a constitutional amendment because the ban on same‑sex marriage is written directly into Arizona’s constitution, so the only way to remove and replace that discriminatory language is with another voter‑approved amendment.

What’s in the Arizona Constitution now

• In 2008, voters passed Proposition 102, which added Article 30 to the Arizona Constitution stating that “only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.”

• Because this definition sits in the constitution, the legislature cannot fix it with a regular bill; it can only be changed by another constitutional amendment that voters approve.

Why existing marriage equality isn’t enough

• Same-sex marriage is currently legal in Arizona because federal courts, following U.S. Supreme Court decisions on marriage equality, struck down the state’s bans. However, the original one-man/one-woman definition of marriage still remains in Arizona’s state constitution.

• These protections rely on past Supreme Court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges. Because some justices have suggested those decisions could be reconsidered, adding protections at the state constitutional level is seen as a way to safeguard marriage equality if federal precedent changes.

What the amendment would do

• Measures like Respect for Marriage Arizona are designed to delete the outdated one‑man/one‑woman clause and replace it with language guaranteeing that civil marriage between two people cannot be denied or invalidated because of sex, race, or similar characteristics.

• That approach makes Arizona’s highest law match what is already happening in people’s lives, ensuring that all marriages are treated equally and that future legislatures or courts cannot easily roll those rights back.

Civil marriage is the legal status the government creates; religious marriage is a spiritual or doctrinal status your faith community creates. They often overlap, but they are not the same thing.

Civil marriage

• Created by the state when you meet legal requirements (license, age, consent, not already married, etc.) and complete a valid ceremony and paperwork.
• Brings legal consequences: taxes, inheritance, immigration, parental presumptions, hospital visitation, community property, divorce rules, and so on.
• Can be entered through many types of ceremonies (courthouse, officiant, or qualifying clergy) as long as state law is satisfied.
• Can be dissolved only through civil processes (divorce, annulment, etc.), regardless of what a religion says about the relationship.

Religious marriage

• Created by a particular faith tradition (Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) according to its own doctrines and rules.
• Is about being “married in the eyes of God/our faith,” not about taxes or legal rights.
• The community decides who is eligible (for example, some traditions restrict remarriage after divorce, require premarital counseling, or require both partners to share the faith).
• Can continue, end, or be “annulled” under religious rules that have no automatic effect on your civil‑law marital status.

How they interact in practice

• One ceremony can do both: a pastor, priest, or rabbi can act as a religious officiant and as an authorized agent of the state by signing the license.
• You can have one without the other:
  • Civil but not religious (e.g., courthouse wedding, then a church that won’t recognize the marriage).
  • Religious but not civil (e.g., a couple married in a church without a civil license—spiritually married in that faith, but not legally married).
• Because of the First Amendment, religious bodies generally can decide for themselves whom they will marry, even if civil law would allow the couple to marry; at the same time, they cannot stop the state from granting a civil marriage to that couple elsewhere.

So, when you see a church refusing to marry a divorced person or a same‑sex couple, that’s about religious marriage; those people may still be fully eligible for civil marriage through the state.

The First Amendment is the part of the U.S. Constitution that protects core individual freedoms and limits what the federal (and, through later interpretation, state) government can do.

The exact rights it lists

The text says that government may not:

• Establish a religion or stop people from freely practicing their religion (freedom of religion).
• Restrict freedom of speech or of the press (speech and media).
• Stop people from peaceably assembling (gathering in groups, protests, meetings).
• Block people from petitioning the government for a redress of grievances (asking the government to fix problems).

Two key religion clauses

• Establishment Clause: government cannot create an official religion, favor one religion over another, or favor religion over non‑religion (for example, no official “state church”).
• Free Exercise Clause: government cannot interfere with your right to hold religious beliefs and, within limits, to practice them (for example, attending services, wearing religious clothing), as long as practices don’t violate generally applicable laws or public safety.

Expression and democracy

• Freedom of speech protects most kinds of expression, especially political speech, so people can criticize the government and advocate for change without punishment, subject to narrow limits (like true threats or incitement).
• Freedom of the press ensures journalists and media can report on government and public issues independently, which is central to democratic accountability.

Assembly and petition

• Freedom of assembly lets people gather for protests, rallies, unions, religious meetings, and other peaceful collective activities in public spaces, within reasonable time/place/manner rules.
• The right to petition means you can lobby officials, file lawsuits, organize campaigns, and otherwise formally ask the government to change laws or policies without retaliation.

In practice, courts constantly interpret how far these protections go, but at its core the First Amendment is about shielding conscience, expression, and collective action from government control.

In the U.S., churches and clergy can generally choose which couples they will marry, and civil law does not force them to perform ceremonies that violate their religious doctrine.

Civil vs. religious marriage

• Civil marriage is what the state controls: issuing licenses, recognition, benefits, and constitutional rights; Obergefell requires governments to license and recognize same‑sex marriages on equal terms.​
• Religious marriage is governed by the internal rules of each faith community; Obergefell and similar laws do not require any church to change its doctrine or religious marriage practices.

Clergy discretion

• The First Amendment protects churches, synagogues, mosques, and similar bodies in deciding which marriages they recognize and celebrate, including declining to marry couples whose situation conflicts with their beliefs (such as same‑sex couples, interfaith couples, or divorcees without an annulment in Catholic practice).
• Legal analyses after Obergefell note that there is “no significant risk” that pastors or churches can be compelled to perform same‑sex weddings; the decision binds governments, not religious officiants.

Public accommodations vs. houses of worship

• Anti‑discrimination laws mainly apply to “public accommodations” (businesses and services open to the general public), not to houses of worship conducting religious rites for their members.
• If a religious institution runs services that are truly open to the public (for example, a commercial event venue unrelated to worship), that specific service can sometimes be treated like a public accommodation, but ordinary sacramental marriage rites inside a church are treated as religious activity with broad autonomy.