Comments on: Court hearing doesn’t go well for Washington anti-gay petition signatories

By: aj

aj — Sun, 02 May 2010 17:07:57 +0000

I agree with John. There was alot of controversy when the names were checked. MANY were disqualified (for a variety of reasons). There is a line on the petition where the pollster is supposed to sign that he/she was witness to ALL of the names on the petitions being signed. One person (if accurate) was able to get so many people to sign that he MUST have had to have MANY people sign every hour for many days straight (even in the middle of the night, he didn’t even take time off to sleep,eat,etc).

I did find it humourous that “they” are so scared of being attacked (mean stares at grocery stores, phone calls, etc), when the ONLY “attack” I heard of was a blogger that DID make threats ON HIS BLOG. He was later arrested, I believe. Even in the court hearing, they couldn’t come up with ONE tangible, real life threatening act of intimidation. Just a lot of “they might…”
I admit that when the petitions were going around, I kinda looked at the names above where I was expected to sign (just to see if I recognized anyone), but that was as far as it went. If I had, I would have asked them WHY they signed, not bully them. I did find that many were confused about it (when it came time to vote). They weren’t sure if an APPROVE meant that rights would be taken away or kept.
BTW: when I had the petition, I just responded to the pollster with: “I don’t think discrimination is right, and this is just cruel.” Said loudly enough for those near me to hear and maybe reconsider, then walked away.

A little of an aside, I just read that CWA wants these names to be kept private, yet in the past, they demanded the names be made public (in another case, where it was in their interest for public disclosure). They seem to want it both ways, hm??

Just my 2 cents.
aj

By: John Doucette

John Doucette — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:39:18 +0000

If one is looking for anonymity and privacy, one shouldn’t be signing petitions. If one signs a petition, one should have the courage of one’s supposed convictions/beliefs to be public about it. I’m sure that if the shoe was on the other foot these people would be all gung ho to publish names. In fact, they do so when they are attacking those with whom they disagree.

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:54:55 +0000

Bryan and Desiree,

I changed it to avoid confusion

By: Désirée

Désirée — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:12:00 +0000

@Bryan – the supporters were the people who wanted to keep the names private and it didn’t go well for them in court, so no, the title isn’t wrong

By: Dennis

Dennis — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 05:21:53 +0000

Our brilliant Chief Justice strikes again! The signers of a petition should remain anonymous if they face a threat. Makes sense since the well being of people threatened by the law are also not named. Let’s all go out and buy a burka and level the playing field.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 00:49:19 +0000

Sorry – shouldn’t the title to this post refer to the OPPONENTS of Ref. 71, instead of the supporters?

By: Burr

Burr — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:19:35 +0000

Still think it’s totally absurd to expect anonymity when you’re writing your name on a piece of paper that anyone after you can read for themselves.

By: Tony P

Tony P — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:11:42 +0000

I’ve been fighting the public record squabble here in RI. I purchased a copy of the voter registration rolls and have on occasion posted an address or two.

You wouldn’t believe the shit I had to put up with. WordPress suspended my blog for about a week until I pointed out that their privacy policy did not protect the subjects of blog posts. Crack legal team they have there.

And of course everyone brings up the case of Dr. George Tiller – look people it is ALL public record. Every last bit of it including your disposed criminal history.