Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJuly 27th, 2009
On Sunday, anti-gay activists in Washington turned in signatures to place on the ballot a referrendum on whether a law granting same-sex couples domestic partnerships all the rights, responsibilities, and obligations as marraige (but not the name). Accoding to organizer Gary Randall of the Faith and Freedom Network,
We delivered a little over 138,000 signatures on 9,359 petition sheets to the Secretary of State’s office in Olympia a few hours ago.
Because the petition will require 120,577 valid signatures, they have a cushion of less than 15% to allow for errors, duplicates, unregistered signatories, incorrect addresses and other invalid signatures. This is a very small margin. Although many say this is too close to call, I think it is likely that when verification is complet that this effort will prove to have been in vain.
However, even though the signatures may not be adequate, there will be those who suffer from Saturday’s effort.
First there are those 5,700 couples who have to wait for their rights – which were to have been recognized on Sunday. They have waited long enough, and I suspect that much of the decision to go ahead and turn in the petitions was based on spiteful desire to harm these couples for as long as they could.
And there are 138,000 people who will now have recorded for posterity and for public scrutiny on a searchable website their action to deny rights to their neighbors. Sadly, some of them were gay supporters who were deceived and lied to – but they too will be tarred as unkind, selfish, spiteful neighbors.
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Christopher Waldrop
July 27th, 2009
It’s unfortunate that those who are opposed to equality feel that lying is justified—that it’s the lesser of two evils. Also, I don’t believe anyone promoting equality would lie about this, especially knowing they could be caught. I honestly believe those who are trying to put an end to bigotry and intolerance are honest primarily because it’s the right thing to do, but also, to a lesser degree, because being caught lying would hurt the cause. I’m not suggesting those of us who are in favor of equality would or should lie if we could get away with it, but unfortunately it seems to be the way of things that bigots aren’t worried about being called liars. They don’t really object to being called liars, and pointing out their dishonesty doesn’t seem to hurt their efforts at all.
I know it’s too much to hope that both sides will be equally honest. I do find some small comfort in the fact that the signature-gatherers are aware of just how tenuous their position is that they’re unwilling to be honest.
Burr
July 27th, 2009
Why is there no legal measure against this sort of thing? IMO if you can prove one instance of this outright lying, the whole petition should be thrown out. It’s no different than election fraud.
If you can’t play fair you don’t deserve to play at all.
Richard W. Fitch
July 27th, 2009
“And there are 138,000 people who will not(?now?) have recorded for posterity and for public scrutiny on a searchable website their action to deny rights to their neighbors.”
Martha
July 27th, 2009
And there are 138,000 people who will not have recorded for posterity and for public scrutiny on a searchable website their action to deny rights to their neighbors. Sadly, some of them were gay supporters who were deceived and lied to – but they too will be tarred as unkind, selfish, spiteful neighbors.
Well, given that we actually know that some people were mislead into signing – I would say that was their own fault, but honesty compels me to admit I’ve signed petitions assuming that it was what the canvasser said it was – maybe people could just hold off on assuming that all the signatures are those of bigoted homophobes? Certainly if it turns out there weren’t enough valid signatures anyway, it could be treated as ‘no harm, no foul.’
Just a thought.
Trevor
July 27th, 2009
Why do you people kid yourselves? ALL the signatures will be validated, placed on the ballot, and oh guess what? All the het f**ktards will vote against you. You lose.
David C.
July 27th, 2009
In the unlikely event that there are enough valid signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot, and if in fact the signers names are made widely available by an activist group, those individuals that believe they might have been tricked into signing should participate in a political advertisement exposing the pro-R-71 campaigns’ tactics and thus shame the bigots in front of the entire state.
Irrespective of whether this measure makes it to the ballot, all of these facts should be kept along with evidence of what happened with respect to the 71 signature drive. Anti-gay activists will not give up, and it will be necessary to fight them again., so having some political ammunition will be helpful in the future.
Paid signature gatherers lie and distort facts to get signatures because they have a cash incentive to do so. Exposing this is important when out-of-state anti-gay activists try to influence state social policy in a manner that is not helpful to the residents of that state.
Timothy Kincaid
July 27th, 2009
Thanks, Richard. Now that’s a typo that fully changed the meaning.
Brian Murphy
July 28th, 2009
Once the Referendum 71 signatures are made accessible online by WhoSigned.org and KnowThyNeighbor.org we’ll have a way for voters who were misled or signed in error to provide an affidavit that we’ll also put online linked to the name on the site.
The public will be able to check and correct the public record and people who signed in error will be able to share their stories.
Brian Murphy
WhoSigned.org
Mark F.
July 28th, 2009
Well, if this does get on the ballot and is defeated , it would be the first time gay marriage won at the ballot box. That would be significant.
We do eventually need a ballot box win.
Timothy Kincaid
July 28th, 2009
Mark,
This isn’t marriage. It’s domestic partnerships.
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