Of the six amendments on theNovember ballot, five of them(Amendments 1, 3, 4, 6 and 8) were proposed either by the Legislature (Amendment 1) or the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission (Amendments 3, 4, 6 and 8). The Ledger recommended "Yes" votes on those five amendments Thursday.

Three others were removed by the Florida Supreme Court because of misleading labeling. That left Amendment 2, an extremely controversial proposal that arrived on the ballot through the petition method.

MOTIVATION VS. UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

The amendment probably should have been removed for the same reason as the others. It is misleading and far from neutral in its labeling.

The title is the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment, but that doesn't begin to describe what it does. Protection from what? Apparently, it's from any people other than "one man and one woman" being allowed to marry under the authority of the state. Supporters passionately believe that the institution of marriage is threatened by same-sex relationships, but the point is highly debatable.

It doesn't matter to advocates of this amendment that Florida law already prohibits same-sex marriage. They say some court might some day invalidate the statute. Given the makeup of Florida's appellate courts, that seems beyond unlikely.

The worst part of the amendment would go beyond banning same-sex marriages and extend the prohibition to any other arrangement that would be deemed (By whom? It doesn't say.) "substantially equivalent" to marriage. This would appear to ban civil unions and, possibly, domestic partnerships that already exist in some parts of the state. No one really knows how the courts would interpret this section, and it's surprising that the sponsors are willing to leave it to judges they regard with such suspicion.

It's not hard to see political motivations in this amendment. Sponsors fell a little short of getting the required petition signatures two years ago, thus putting the issue on a presidential election ballot in a key swing state. This is in line with national Republican strategies that encourage conservative voters to turn out because of hot-button issues such as this.

The bottom line, politics aside, is that this amendment isn't needed and could have unintended consequences that are bad for Florida and its citizens. The Ledger recommends a "NO" vote on Amendment 2.