IDs of gay partnership foes could be released next week
The names of people who signed petitions seeking to overturn Washington’s “everything but marriage” same-sex domestic partner law won’t be released publicly following a federal judge’s temporary restraining order.
Sponsors of Referendum 71 went to U.S. District Court in Tacoma Wednesday seeking the order. U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle has set a full hearing on the matter for Sept. 3.
The names of everyone who signed Referendum-71 petitions are publicly available under open-government laws. A gay-rights group says it wants to post all the names online. But the R-71 campaign says that could lead to harassment.
Nick Handy, state elections director, said in a statement: “Referendum petitions become public records under the law once they have been turned over to us by sponsors. Our consistent practice has been to make these available upon public request. By early next week we will be in a position to make these available, and absent a court order, our intent has been to respond to public records requests in a timely way.”
Backers of R-71 turned in about 138,000 signatures Saturday. They need 120,577 valid voter signatures to qualify for the fall ballot.
Election officials suggest submitting about 150,000 signatures to offset any invalid signatures. Dave Ammons, spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, said usually about 18 percent of signatures checked turn out to be invalid.
The process of counting and verifying the signatures could go until the last week of August.
See IDs of gay partnership foes could be released next week Seattle Post Intelligencer
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Wash. gay partnership foes try to shield signers
State officials won’t resist a temporary restraining order that would block public release of petition signatures for a gay-partnership referendum.
The case centers on Referendum 71, which would ask voters to approve or reject expanded partnership rights for gay couples.
The names of everyone who signed R-71 petitions are publicly available under open-government laws.
A gay-rights group is planning to post all the names online, so partnership supporters can talk to those people about the referendum.
But the R-71 campaign says that could lead to harassment. So they’re asking a federal judge to keep the petitions secret, until they can make their argument in court.
See Wash. gay partnership foes try to shield signers
Seattle Times
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Gay partnership foes turn in referendum signatures
Opponents of a measure that passed the Legislature this year giving same-sex domestic partners all the rights of married people turned in signatures to the secretary of state’s office Saturday in attempt to overturn the new law through a citizen referendum.
Referendum 71 needs 120,577 valid voter signatures to qualify for the fall ballot. Exactly how many signatures the R-71 camp turned in Saturday wasn’t immediately clear. The secretary of state’s office said it received the first batch a little after 3 p.m. Saturday.
Election officials suggest submitting about 150,000 signatures to offset any invalid signatures. Dave Ammons, spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, said usually about 18 percent of signatures checked turn out to be invalid.
He said Saturday that R-71 backers were cutting it very close.
“They’re definitely running on fumes, in terms of trying to get their pad,” Ammons said.
The process of counting and verifying the signatures could go until the last week of August.
If R-71 proponents don’t have enough signatures, the domestic partnership expansion will immediately take effect. If the measure does qualify, voters will be asked to either approve or reject the new law.
See Gay partnership foes turn in referendum signatures
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Wash. gay partnership foes say “too close to call”
OLYMPIA, Wash. —
Washington state’s latest expansion of domestic partnerships for gay couples was hanging in limbo Friday as opponents announced a final push to force a public vote, calling their effort so far “too close to call.”
In a statement to supporters, organizers of the Referendum 71 campaign said they believe they will have at least the minimum 120,577 petition signatures needed by Saturday to qualify for the ballot.
However, R-71 organizer Gary Randall said the campaign doesn’t have enough extra signatures to act as a cushion for erroneous or duplicate petition signatures, which must come from registered Washington voters.
To help meet the deadline, Randall appealed to R-71 supporters to gather additional signatures and drive them to the state Capitol on Saturday afternoon.
“We’re not trying to have a rally or anything,” Randall said later by telephone. “We need the signatures, we truly do.”
The new “everything but marriage” expansion of domestic partnerships is scheduled to take effect Sunday, but the law will be delayed if referendum sponsors turn in their petitions.
See Wash. gay partnership foes say “too close to call”
Seattle Times
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A political fight over the rights of same-sex…
A political fight over the rights of same-sex couples is drawing nearer in Washington State.
Backers of Referendum 71, who want to overturn a new state same-sex partnership law, have made an appointment to file signatures with state elections officials Saturday afternoon.
Saturday is the deadline to collect 120,577 valid voter signatures and qualify for the Nov. 3 state ballot.
Protect Marriage Washington is the primary backer of R-71. Gary Randall of the allied Faith and Freedom Network said by e-mail: “We are gathering and counting signatures. I think we are making good progress.”
Protect Marriage has raised just more than $20,000 for a campaign that so far has been waged mostly through churches. Randall said the group is not anti-gay but pro-marriage. The group wants voters to reject Senate Bill 5688, the “everything but marriage” legislation that passed this year and adds about 250 rights of marriage for registered same-sex partners in Washington.
Defenders of the new state law, who call themselves Washington Families Standing Together, say they are ready to defend the third round of rights lawmakers added since creating the partners registry in 2007.
See Washington State braces for battle over same-sex rights
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Humpday Isn’t Really About Gay Sex
Lynn Shelton’s Humpday, a sexual sitcom, opens with a pair of breeders in bed. A youngish married couple, Ben (mumblecordeon Mark Duplass) and Anna (Alycia Delmore), confess they’re too tired to procreate that night and then confess their mutual relief. As if in response, the doorbell rings at 2 a.m. and Ben’s long-lost college buddy, Andrew (Blair Witch Project survivor Joshua Leonard), stumbles in from deepest Mexico. Anna, who has never had the pleasure, watches the unexpected bromantic action with grim incredulity. Aggressively loud, demonstrative, and hairy, Andrew is a credible representation of Ben’s id.
Reuniting an uptight married man with a footloose old pal, Shelton’s third feature offers a (much) more extreme version of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, also a sort of buddy movie, also shot in the Pacific Northwest. In this case, the lost weekend is steeped in sexual anxiety. Friday night, Ben has to retrieve merry Andrew from a house called “Dionysus” — home to a bi cutie (the director herself) and an omnisexual assortment of roisterers. No orgies, but plenty of stoned dancing. Anna, who has prepared her signature pork chop dinner, sits home alone. She stews; Ben gets stewed. Prompted by news of an amateur porn festival — sponsored by a local alt-weekly — Ben finds himself proposing to costar with showoff Andrew in a mad art project, dude-on-dude action, totally straight, yet somewhere “beyond gay.” Maybe they’ll be famous. The only problem: Just who is going to bone whom?
Having thus invested its protagonists in a game of “chicken,” played to justify their respective life choices, Humpday delivers some excellent situation comedy. The scene where Andrew and Anna have a get-acquainted drink and Andrew inadvertently exposes Ben’s boastful lie that his wife has signed off on their “project” is pure Honeymooners. (Bang, zoom, straight to the moon!) Ben can’t tell Anna why he wants to have sex with Andrew, only that it’s very, very important to him. And, terrified that Ben might think he really did have a yen, Andrew can only sigh, “I wish I was more gay.” Of course. Just as Brüno is more of a comment on celebrity culture than the love (or hate) that dare not speak its name, Humpday is actually less a queer comedy than a satiric view of macho. Appreciative as Shelton may be of her dudes, she has another agenda. Each in his own way, the guys have been freaked by a manifestation of assertive female sexuality — although the term “pussy-whipped” is never used.
See Humpday Isn’t Really About Gay Sex
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Effort To Ban Gay Unions Falling Short In Wash. State
The effort to place a gay-inclusive domestic partnership law up for a vote in Washington State appears to be falling short.
With a looming deadline of Saturday at 2PM, opponents of the law dubbed by the media as the “everything but marriage law” have only 4 full days left to gather thousands of valid signatures.
Opponents – a coalition of mostly religious groups – announced their attempt to repeal the bill in November, even before it became law in May. Gary Randall, president of the Faith and Freedom Network, says his group filed Referendum 71 because the law is too close to marriage and violates the law.
“The bill … elevates homosexual relationships to that of traditional marriage, thus eliminating any legal difference between domestic partnerships and marriage,” Randall wrote in a blog entry posted on the group’s website before the bill became law.
“I do not believe a majority [of] Washingtonians believe in homosexual marriage, nor do they want to become a national attraction for homosexuals from other states and countries,” he added.
Organizers, however, admit that they have fallen desperately behind in collecting the 120,577 valid signatures needed to qualify the measure. Randall told the conservative group Concerned Women for America that only 75,000 signatures had been collected as of Friday. Leaving the group at least 45,577 signatures short. But in order to ensure there are sufficient valid signatures, the group estimates it needs to collect 75,000 signatures. In other words, opponents need to collect as many signatures in one week as they did in the previous seven to eight weeks.
The Democratic-controlled House passed the bill in April along a mostly party-line vote of 62 to 35. Senators approved the bill in March with a 30 to 18 vote, and Governor Chris Gregoire signed the bill into law on May 18. See Effort To Ban Gay Unions Falling Short In Wash. State
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Philip Hensher: Forget about a ‘cure’ for homosexuality
It grows increasingly hard to tell the difference between bishops of the Church of England and Paris Hilton. Bishops used to be thoughtful, retiring people, happy to spread the word of God through bring-and-buy sales, the Mothers’ Union and the occasional sermon. Nowadays, some of them have been bitten by the bug of publicity, and they just can’t seem to shut up.
One bishop in particular has been an absolute gift to the media on slow days for news. With no story whatsoever in sight, the office intern is instructed to call up Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, and ask him for his opinions on – well, it hardly matters. He will strike a moral pose, and many of us will wonder where on earth he gets it from. He is, frankly, a perfect scream.
In 2000 he said that having children in a marriage was not an “optional extra” and there was “a real lack” if people decided not to have children. Last year, he said Islamic extremism was turning parts of our cities into “no-go areas”, and complained about the amplified call to prayer. He has also denounced multiculturalism as “newfangled and insecurely founded” and in 2007 announced he wouldn’t be going to the Lambeth Conference, in protest at a gay bishop in America.
In a few months he is retiring, 10 years early, to set up a confederation of fundamentalist churches. In the meantime, he has been going round shedding a few more flaky ponderings like psoriasis. The latest, revealed in a newspaper interview, is on the subject of homosexuality, and it amazes me that Dr Nazir-Ali has taken so long to get round to his African colleagues’ favourite subject. Dr Nazir-Ali said: “The Bible’s teaching shows that marriage is between a man and a woman. That is the way to express our sexual nature. We welcome homosexuals, we don’t want to exclude people, but we want them to repent and be changed.”
See Philip Hensher: Forget about a ‘cure’ for homosexuality
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Ancient India didn’t think homosexuality was against nature
NEW DELHI: Was Indian society tolerant of homosexuality before the colonial administration proscribed it in 1860? The government has taken conflicting positions on this within the country and outside.
On a petition pending before the Delhi high court seeking to decriminalize homosexuality, the government said in its counter affidavit that that there were “no convincing reports to indicate that homosexuality or other offences against the order of nature mentioned in Section 377 IPC were acceptable in the Indian society prior to colonial rule.�
But when it was being reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council last year for the first time ever, India distanced itself from that provision when Sweden, arguably the most gay-friendly country in the world, questioned its record in ensuring equality irrespective of a person’s sexual orientation.
This is how Goolam Vahanvati, who was then solicitor-general and is now attorney-general, tried to save India’s face before the council as part of its official delegation. “Around the early 19th Century, you probably know that in England they frowned on homosexuality, and therefore there are historical reports that various people came to India to take advantage of its more liberal atmosphere with regard to different kinds of sexual conduct.
“As a result, in 1860 when we got the Indian Penal Code, which was drafted by Lord Macaulay, they inserted Section 377 which brought in the concept of ‘sexual offences against the order of nature’.
Now in India we didn’t have this concept of something being ‘against the order of nature’. It was essentially a Western concept, which has remained over the years. Now homosexuality as such is not defined in the IPC, and it will be a matter of great argument whether it is ‘against the order of nature.”
Vahanvati’s admission on the international forum that the ban on homosexuality was a western import and its relevance was debatable flies in the face of the government’s unabashed efforts before the Delhi high court to retain Section 377, complete with its colonial baggage and archaic notion of unnatural offences.
Whatever the politics behind this glaring contradiction, there is ample evidence placed before the high court by petitioner Naz Foundation substantiating in effect Vahanvati’s view that in the centuries prior to the enactment of section 377, India was rather accommodating of homosexuals. See Ancient India didn’t think homosexuality was against nature
Times of India
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Homosexuality immoral, but not criminal: Religious leaders
In the first flurry of reactions, religious leaders appeared to be slamming the de-criminalization of gay sex. But while most conservative scholars and clerics remain opposed to homosexuality as an article of faith, many say that they aren’t advocating making it a criminal act as Section 377 of IPC did.
Writer and philosopher Deepak Chopra told TOI from his home in New York, ‘‘A new morality must evolve that is based on a true understanding of human nature, that is also consistent with its biology. Homosexuality has been part of the human condition for as long as human beings have existed. The Delhi High Court should be congratulated for making a decision that finally catches up with our times.’’
Then, while Delhi Catholic Archdiocese has described homosexuality as ‘‘unnatural’’, it says it has nothing against its de-criminalization. Spokesperson of Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, Father Dominic Emmanuel, told TOI,‘‘Homosexuality is a sin — as opposed to a crime. But we believe that those who indulge in it should be treated with respect and compassion.’’
In a newspaper article, Father Dominic was even more forthright. ‘‘It needs to be made clear that the Christian community does not (repeat it does not) treat people with homosexual tendencies as criminals. Nor does it believe that they can be regarded on par with criminals. Therefore, the church has no serious objection to the repealing of Section 377.
‘‘The Vatican’s stand on this is quite clear: Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided’,’’ wrote Father Dominic.
Similarly, some Muslim clerics and scholars, too, favour de-criminalization of homosexuality, saying that while Islam does not permit homosexuality, this doesn’t mean it should be equated with criminality.
‘‘The Quran condemns homosexuality, but doesn’t prescribe any punishment for it. It’s a sin, not a crime. Sin is between Allah and the sinner, but crime concerns the entire society. So, sexual minorities should be left to their conscience. They are answerable to Allah for their act and should not be treated as criminals,’’ said Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer.
Maulana Abu Zafar Hassan Nadvi, a cleric, too accepts that since the Quran is silent on the punishment for homosexuality, it should be treated as an irreligious, immoral act. ‘‘Every non-religious act is not liable to be punished. Just as we don’t pronounce death for atheists, homosexuals should be left alone until they get reformed,” said Maulana Nadvi. See Homosexuality immoral, but not criminal: Religious leaders
Times of India
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