It was a weird juxtaposition. The signing ceremony for Washington State's new Marriage Equality law had just concluded. A number of ecstatic same sex couples were lingering in the capital's rotunda when a haggard looking Rick Santorum and his aides came walking by, met by more than a few raised eyebrows from the happy couples.
Santorum calls Marriage Equality "Intollarent". Keeping same sex couples in a second class status is Rick Santorum's twisted idea of tolerance.
Governor Chris Gregoire signed the historic legislation in a ceremony before Santorum arrived. Opponents are expected to get an initiative to roll back the law on the November Ballot. That effort is expected to come close but fail at the ballot box so if all that happens as expected the new law will probably go into effect on December 7th.
As a lifelong Washington resident I am proud of the change my state made today to treat all of its citizens with all of the dignity they deserve. I am also very gratified that my state was able to send such an emphatic message to Rick Santorum on his arrival here that this country is leaving Santorum's brand of narrow minded bigotry behind.
Also see: "It doesn't threaten my marriage, I don't think it threatens anybody's marriage"
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UPDATE: Santorum is calling for an Constitutional Amendment to ban same sex marriage. Upset that Marriage Equality is being enacted by the states Rick Santorum is calling for a Constitutional Amendment that would roll back all the states' Marriage Equality laws.
Santorum, visiting Olympia, calls for constitutional ban on same-sex marriage
OLYMPIA — Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, well known for his opposition to same-sex marriage, visited Olympia on Monday, the same day Washington made same-sex marriage legal.
“I think it waters down marriage and I don’t think that’s what we need,” Santorum said. “We need to have a national consensus on this, a national debate. I believe we should move forward with a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.”
We all know what staunch defenders of states' rights Republicans are,... until the states start doing things Republicans don't like.
UPDATE #2: The Tacoma Santorum Rally & Protest
From the SLOG:
The Rick Santorum Rally in Tacoma Probably Could Have Gone Better
by PAUL CONSTANT
Santorum's speech was plagued from beginning to end by angry young protesters. Members of Occupy Tacoma embedded in the crowd mic checked Santorum on several different occasions. (Occupy Tacoma headquarters were just 500 feet away from the rally site.) Marriage equality activists started a pro-gay-marriage chant that silenced the candidate for something like two minutes, and they encouraged passing traffic to honk in support of marriage equality and taxing the wealthy, adding to the general cacophony. The concrete plaza in front of the Washington State History Museum entrance, with its sweeping coliseum-style seating surrounded on two sides by abrupt, tall brick walls, was a perfect echo chamber, muddling both Santorum's speech and the shouts of protesters into one dull, angry roar.
Santorum played it safe and stuck to his plain old stump speech, when he wasn't being routed by Occupiers and other liberal activists. He generally tried the rope-a-dope on his protesters, smiling down at them and making some mild comments about how in America "we get to hear from everybody," but reassuring his crowd that Occupy Tacoma didn't represent "the real Washington." Only during one particularly lengthy interruption did Santorum allow his exasperation to show through, making a "this-sure-isn't-my-usual-room" comment to laughs among the audience that could hear him. His arguments against foreign oil were the first remarks that the entire audience could hear, followed by his boilerplate about wanting to be president of "100% of America."
About halfway through the handshaking, Santorum was glitterbombed. This was not just any glitterbomb, where a handful of glitter is haphazardly thrown at the candidate: Rick Santorum was glitter bukkake'd: He had glitter cascading down the front of his sweater vest, all down his back, through his hair, and his giant forehead shone in the flashes of photographs like Ke$ha had just vomited on it. But Santorum plodded onward with the weary grace of someone who had been sprinkled with glitter by strangers against his will many times before.