Colorado teen to drop marriage ballot initiative

A Colorado teenager decided today to drop his 2012 state ballot initiative to change the definition of marriage here.

Mark Olmstead, a sophomore at Seattle University, told Out Front Colorado he decided to withdraw his initiative after not garnering enough fiscal support to fund it.

While Olmstead saw an outpouring of individuals who said they’d help collect signatures, since being cleared by the state to collect signatures July 20, no organization or person came forward with cash to help Olmstead fund what would be a costly year-long campaign, he said.

“I realized this would be a very costly and time consuming campaign,” Olmstead said. “It would be very difficult to pull off by myself.”

In order to have had his question on the ballot, Omlstead would have needed to collect 86,105 signatures by January.

Olmstead, 19, said he’s happy his initiative brought — albeit short lived — attention to the issue of same-sex marriage in Colorado.

Voters in 2006 approved Amendment 43 that defined marriage between a man and a woman. Coloradans also vetoed Referendum I that would have established domestic partnerships.

Earlier this year, two gay Denver Democrats, Rep. Mark Ferrandino and Sen. Pat Steadman, introduced legislation to create state recognized civil unions. While the bill passed in the Senate with bipartisan support, a Republican-controlled House judiciary committee struck it down on a party line vote.

Steadman and Ferrnadino have vowed to reintroduce the legislation in 2012.

Olmstead said he’ll return to Seattle Sept. 14 and hopes to stay engaged in the fight for same-sex marriage.

“I’m still going to be fighting for (marriage equality),” he said. “Maybe in a different way. A ballot initiative is just so hard to pull off.”