Ooooh yeah, I forgot how South Dakota was ridiculously close in 2006. Like, California close. Anyone know why? There are not signs of them actually supporting same-sex marriage, is it just because they're not fans of amending their constitution?
That's certainly part of it. We tend to instinctively vote against amendment unless there's a really good reason to. Also, the amendment banned civil unions, domestic partnerships, or anything similar to them; the language said that any "quasi-marital" relationship would be banned, but no one could quite define what that meant. So some said it would have unintended consequences depending on how it was interpreted. Also, no one paid much attention to it, because all the energy was focused on the abortion vote that year.
