{"id":1166,"date":"2009-01-09T17:45:39","date_gmt":"2009-01-09T17:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/01\/cleveland-clergy-fail-in-bid-t.php"},"modified":"2009-01-09T17:45:39","modified_gmt":"2009-01-09T17:45:39","slug":"cleveland-clergy-fail-in-bid-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/cleveland-clergy-fail-in-bid-t","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland Clergy Fail in Bid to Ditch Domestic Partner Registry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CLEVELAND (RNS) A group of Cleveland pastors who tried to trigger a referendum to overturn the city&#8217;s domestic-partner registry have come up short in their bid for signatures.<br \/>\nThe group, led by the Rev. C. Jay Matthews of Mount Sinai Baptist Church, needed to submit about 11,000 signatures by Wednesday (Jan. 7) to put the issue to a citywide vote.<br \/>\nMatthews said only a few thousand signatures were collected. He blamed the failure on a narrow time frame over the holidays.<br \/>\n&#8220;We knew it was going to be tough,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nReligious leaders now will focus on a maneuver known as an `ordinance by initiative.&#8217; It requires 5,000 signatures and allows petitioners to submit legislation to repeal the registry. That legislation could be placed before voters if the City Council does not pass it.<br \/>\nIn December, the City Council voted 13-7 to create a registry for same- and opposite-sex couples. Supporters said the move would cultivate a gay-friendly image for Cleveland and perhaps help domestic partners obtain benefits, such as health care, typically reserved for married couples.<br \/>\nMatthews&#8217; supporters, however, oppose the registry as a sneaky way for city lawmakers to circumvent a 2004 state constitutional amendment that banned gay marriages and civil unions in Ohio.<br \/>\nThe registry, which is set to debut in three months, would not guarantee any rights or mean a couple is legally married. Legal challenges to a similar registry in suburban Cleveland Heights have failed.<br \/>\nMatthews said his group circulated petitions for both the referendum and the ordinance by initiative and is getting close to 5,000 signatures for the initiative. He said he hopes to submit the legislation by April.<br \/>\nSue Doerfer, head of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center of Greater Cleveland, said activists have launched a campaign to knock on doors to promote the registry.<br \/>\n&#8220;People have very strong feelings about same-sex marriage,&#8221; Doerfer said.  &#8220;This is not marriage. I think there is a lot of misinformation out there.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>By Henry J. Gomez<br \/>\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service.  All rights reserved.  No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CLEVELAND (RNS) A group of Cleveland pastors who tried to trigger a referendum to overturn the city&#8217;s domestic-partner registry have come up short in their bid for signatures. The group, led by the Rev. C. Jay Matthews of Mount Sinai Baptist Church, needed to submit about 11,000 signatures by Wednesday (Jan. 7) to put the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cleveland Clergy Fail in Bid to Ditch Domestic Partner Registry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/cleveland-clergy-fail-in-bid-t\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cleveland Clergy Fail in Bid to Ditch Domestic Partner Registry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CLEVELAND (RNS) A group of Cleveland pastors who tried to trigger a referendum to overturn the city&#8217;s domestic-partner registry have come up short in their bid for signatures. The group, led by the Rev. C. 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The group, led by the Rev. C. Jay Matthews of Mount Sinai Baptist Church, needed to submit about 11,000 signatures by Wednesday (Jan. 7) to put the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/cleveland-clergy-fail-in-bid-t","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-01-09T17:45:39+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/cleveland-clergy-fail-in-bid-t","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/cleveland-clergy-fail-in-bid-t","name":"Cleveland Clergy Fail in Bid to Ditch Domestic Partner Registry","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-01-09T17:45:39+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-09T17:45:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/cleveland-clergy-fail-in-bid-t#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/cleveland-clergy-fail-in-bid-t"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/cleveland-clergy-fail-in-bid-t#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cleveland Clergy Fail in Bid to Ditch Domestic Partner Registry"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}