Be careful what you wish for. Issue 1 is an economic disaster for Ohio, and the state’s Republican establishment knows it. In their zeal to ban same-sex marriage, the local branch of the let-me-cram-my-God-down-your-throat crowd drafted an amendment with unintended consequences of epic proportions. Guess what? It passed. Now they have to live with it.

As you might expect, all 11 same-sex marriage amendments on state ballots this year defined marriage as between a man and a woman. But that wasn’t enough for Bush’s zealous operatives in Ohio. Because of their handiwork, Ohio’s constitution now prohibits the state from recognizing any legal status “between unmarried couples gay or straight”. Oops! In their zeal to get the queers, they may have inadvertently raked in grandma and her boyfriend – as well as every other straight couple living in sin in the Buckeye State. For instance, can Ohio State University continue to offer domestic partner benefits to faculty and employees? If not, says President Karen Holbrook, the university will lose a valuable recruiting tool and appear backward and intolerant at the same time. Republican Governor Bob Taft, no friend of the GLBT community and one of the state’s two Republican U.S. senators, opposed the initiative – he thought it might lead private firms to stop offering benefits to unmarried couples, reduce the pool of available talent and put the state at a competitive disadvantage. They were right, and now the state will have a political and legal mess on their hands.

On a rare bright note, Cincinnatians voted to repeal Article XII of the city’s charter, which prohibited the city council from passing GLBT-rights ordinances of any kind. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, when the article was first enacted in 1998, eight conventions – expected to generate $25 million – cancelled plans to meet there. Doug Moorman, a vice president at the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, which supported the winning effort to repeal Article XII, said the city is “sometimes viewed as an intolerant, ultraconservative place.” The area’s business leaders hope the Nov. 2 vote begins to change that image.