There is a new ballot initiative being brought forward to the people Washington state. This ballot initiative would challenge, the "everything but marriage" law, which greatly expanded rights for gay Americans living in Washington. But the law is being challenged by several Christian groups, including Protect Marriage Washington, which gained nearly 183,000 signatures on a petition, which will qualify it to be voted on in November. The ballot initiative is being called Referendum 71, and it will eliminate several rights, if it voted against.
Several Gay Rights group are asking for the names on the petition to be made public, but Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has blocked that call, and made the names on the petition hidden away.
In a time when women in Oklahoma are forced to give up their name, and other personal information, when getting an abortion, it only seems fair that these names too be released. I will continue after the jump.
R-71, if voted no on, will eliminate the few glimmers of hope that homosexual Americans in Washington have. The "everything but marriage" law guarantees them the same rights as heterosexual couples, with regards to labor, and several other statues established in Washington. Destroying that law will constrict gay residences to nothing more than third class citizens.
They will not be guarded from being fired if they come out to anyone they work with. They will not have the protections that every Washington resident enjoys, and will be a major swipe at the Civil Libertarians in us all.
But the question arises, why would a group whose who purpose is deny Gay residences the right to marry, try to stop legislation that does not give them the right marriage, and only says that they cannot be discriminated against because of their sexual preference? Because they are not about stopping gay marriage, because they think it is an abomination on their faith, they are nothing more than bigots. People who hate the idea of gay Americans have any rights at all.
Now their site claim, that they are protecting Washington from the Trojan Horse in the "everything but marriage" law, that will allow for gay marriage. But their reasons for it are idiotic and completely lost from realty.
A Quotes from the site:
SB 5688 is a 110 page document which includes the phrase "marriage shall apply equally to state registered domestic partnerships" 180 times.
SB 5688 was packaged and presented to the legislature as a Domestic Partnerships expansion of benefits. In truth, it will demolish the state's historical understanding and definition of marriage as that of uniting a man and a woman for life...
But that is a misquote of the law, and makes no sense in the context of the bill. The only correlation I can see is the definitions page which references the term marriage to be used in correlation with the term domestic partnership, and it used as saying these two entities are equal, as the law is concerned. It is not a Trojan horse, but what the entirety of the bill is composed of, and that is to consider same-sex couples equal as married couples.
But that doesn't stop them from this incoherent beliefs that this is somehow some backdoor way into allowing same-sex marriage.
Quotes from the "Talking Points" page on the Protect Marriage Washington site:
Senate Bill 5688 will redefine terms such as "husband" and "wife" to be interpreted as gender neutral. The wording in the bill says, "Where necessary to implement this act, gender-specific terms such as husband and wife used in any statute, rule, or other law shall be construed to be gender neutral, and applicable to individuals in state registered domestic partnerships".
Marriage is between husbands and wives so children can have fathers and mothers. Thousands of studies show that children raised in a family with both a mother and a father are healthier emotionally and physically than those raised in a non-traditional family.
If same-sex marriage becomes the law in Washington, public schools K-12 will likely be forced to teach that same-sex "marriage" and homosexuality are perfectly normal.
But if you actually read the bill, none of this irrational fears become evident, and they are mainly just trying to strip rights away, rather than stop what they deem as the rights of heterosexuals. But they feel that because we (Liberals) want gay marriage, that is somehow our way of doing it. I support gay marriage, but I don't see this bill doing anything to promote it, or establish it. And my support for this, is just so that gay residences in Washington can have the rights, that I as a heterosexual can enjoy if I lived there. But these people will not take that for an answer.
A Quote from the bill itself:
SB 5688:
For the purposes of this chapter, the terms spouse, marriage,
37 marital, husband, wife, widow, widower, next of kin, and family shall be interpreted as applying equally to state registered domestic partnerships or individuals in state registered domestic partnerships as well as to marital relationships and married persons, and references to dissolution of marriage shall apply equally to state registered domestic partnerships that have been terminated, dissolved, or invalidated, to the extent that such interpretation does not conflict with federal law.
So there arguments make no sense, and there terms are invalid, and if R-71 is voted against, I am sure no court will accept it, showing that the intent is strip rights away from people, because of some idiotic fear.
But that leads to the point of this story and that is the release of the names on the petition. Usually I prefer the idea of secrecy when it comes to personal matters. It is my belief that a person's ideals or beliefs, should be allowed to keep to themselves. We should not post the voting record of everyday Americans, because that will impede on their rights, by making them targets by people in the community who do not vote like them. But this is different.
This is a petition, and this something that is meant to be open. If you sign a petition you are establishing that you want people to see your opinions, and see your beliefs and ideals, and if one side wants to see your name, it should be allowed to be seen. That same logic is applying to awful Oklahoma law that will post the personal information about women who are going for an abortion online, in a state that is considered one of the most conservative, where the women will be subjected to cruel hatred by the vast majority who consider them murders.
It will move the protesters from local venues, to outside people's houses and will make violence, a much more realistic fear. But if that game wants to be played by them, then we should do the same.
The difference, though, between gay rights activist and anti-abortion crowds, is the tone of violence. We have not heard of gay rights activist bombing churches in protest of the continuous denial of rights, and the few cases of vandalism we saw in the wake of the passing of Prop 8 in California, was small, and done by individuals, and considered a no-no by the groups organizing the protests.
The difference with the anti-abortion movement groups, is when Dr. Tiller died, they said that they don't condone violence and it was the act of an individual, not the group itself, but as we all seen, they made the person who killed him, seem as though they were some kind of martyrs.
So if given the names of the people who signed this petition, gay rights activists will not go after these people, but instead use it as a resource of who to talk to, of who to lobby towards, in hopes that R-71 gets the yes votes it needs.
We should be considered about this, even if it is a movement in one state, this movement may be a strike at what people in Washington state have been fighting for years for. We need to stop these attempts at destroying the rights of gay Americans, and we need to have the list of names. After all it is only fair. If Oklahoma can have a blacklist for women who choose to get an abortion, then Washington state should have a blacklist for those who choose to be bigots.
Located here is a list of "state leaders" that support this awful bill:http://protectmarriagewa.com/... If you live in Washington state, please give the state reps on this list a call, and be sure to tell the Knights of Columbus a hello too. This is not what America is about, and this bill initiative will eliminate the few right gay couples in your state have.
Also posted if you don't want to read that bull crap is the name listed on that site:
- State Representative Matt Shea
- Pastor Ken Hutcherson, Antioch Bible Church
- Gary Randall, Faith and Freedom Network and Foundation
- State Representative Jim McCune
- Ron Boehme, US Renewal
- Dr. Bruce Craswell
- Senator Dan Swecker
- Senator Val Stevens
- Cindy Honcoop, Washington Eagle Forum
- Larry Stickney, Washington Values Alliance
- Stephen Pidgeon, Legal Counsel, Protect Marriage Washington
- Knight of Columbus
The orange words are information on how to contact them. I did not include two, since one is a Doctor, and I find wrong to bother people, rather than the group as a whole and the Knights of Columbus is broke up into many different sects throughout Washington, and it is impossible to be able to contact them as a whole, from what I saw on their website. And I ask you to not be rude, or be in any way mean spirited towards anyone that answer these calls or emails, because that's what people who support this garbage and these organizations and representatives do, and we should hold ourselves to a higher regard.
Update: Since I can't read, I misunderstood the initiative bring brought forth in Nov. in Washington State. The Referendum 71 needs a yes vote on it, so please everyone, if you have any relatives in Washington, or live there yourself, please tell them to vote YES on R-71. And again sorry for mishaps, that was my mistakes.