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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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.
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Gay rights mean different things to different generations of community
Before there were domestic-partnership registries and commitment ceremonies, before same-sex marriages and civil unions — before the gay-rights movement, even — John McCluskey and Rudy Henry met, fell in love and harbored the notion that they could spend their lives making one another happy.
And for 50 years, the Tacoma men went about doing just that, all the while longing for social acceptance.
Even in gay-friendly San Francisco where they first lived together, they found it necessary to hide their relationship from prospective landlords, and on job applications they would sometimes lie about their marital status to avoid raising suspicion.
Decades later in 2006, at a coffee-shop concert on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, Amy Balliett and Jessica Trejo met and they, too, eventually fell in love.
In their 20s, the two had come out as lesbians at a time when young people could find support in groups on high school and college campuses, when they had gay role models in politics and on television, and when their parents probably knew people who were openly gay. By the time the two married in California last October, legal bonds between gays and lesbians were possible in several states.
Balliett and Trejo, Henry and McCluskey are like generational bookends to this modern gay-rights movement, launched 40 years ago this week after a group of activists at a small Manhattan bar called the Stonewall Inn stood up in violent protest to ongoing police harassment.
While older gays and younger ones share much the same agenda of equality, their needs within the movement are also divergent.
Young people, who have at times referred to their own post-gay movement, seek the protections of marriage equality as they form relationships and start families, while gays of their grandparents’ generation are more concerned about issues of aging — like survivor benefits and long-term care.
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Groups to ‘out’ those who sign petition against same-sex unions
A group called WhoSigned.org says it will publicize the names of people signing petitions for Referendum 71, which seeks a public vote to overturn a new expansion of Washington’s same-sex partnerships.
WhoSigned.org says it’s partnering with the gay rights group KnowThyNeighbor.org to put the names online.
See Groups to ‘out’ those who sign petition against same-sex unions Seattle Times
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Danny Westneat Debate about gay equality appears to be ending
Whatever you may think of Joe Fuiten — the Bothell megachurch pastor and family-values political activist — you gotta give him points for bluntness.
Fuiten put out a revealing memo this week on gay marriage and domestic partnerships. To my eyes, it is the strongest sign yet that sweeping cultural change isn’t just someday coming to our state.
It’s already here.
Last month the state Legislature passed a bill that extends all the state-given benefits of being married to same-sex couples who register as domestic partners.
It’s dubbed the “everything but marriage” law. Its point is: Homosexual marriage may still be illegal here, but in the meantime gay and lesbian couples should have the same legal protections as everyone else.
Fuiten and other conservative Christian leaders opposed the bill, arguing it’s a precursor to gay marriage (which it is). Lately they’ve been debating whether to try to repeal it at the ballot box.
On Monday, Fuiten, pastor at Cedar Park Church, published the frank views of 34 right-leaning political or religious activists on the topic at his blog, franklyfuiten.com.
It’s wide-ranging, so you should read it for yourself. My take-away was that our long debate about gay equality seems to be ending. Gays and lesbians have won. Nobody understands this better than the other side.
“I have seen nothing approaching religious and/or other opposition that amounts to a hill of beans,” wrote Tom Henry, a GOP political consultant.
“Voters are immune or desensitized to the word ‘gay marriage’ right now. Besides, they think we hate them,” wrote Josephine Wentzel, a Vancouver-area Christian conservative.
“With every passing day, we lose more young people to the postmodern philosophy (no absolutes) and older people (with the Judeo-Christian value) to death. Time is not on our side,” wrote Heidi Lestelle, a Kitsap County Christian activist.
I called Fuiten. Though he and I disagree on many political issues — gay marriage in particular — we still stay in touch and debate. I asked him: Is the war over gay rights ending?
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Religious right not united in push to repeal benefits for gay couples
Religious conservatives across the state are divided over a new campaign to repeal legislation extending all the benefits of marriage — except the name — to gay and lesbian couples.
Conservative faith leaders on Monday followed through on an earlier pledge, filing a referendum to overturn Senate Bill 5688, which extends to same-sex couples all the state-given benefits of marriage previously reserved for opposite-sex couples.
But some prominent religious conservatives are not on board with the campaign, saying the timing is all wrong, given the state of the economy.
The referendum’s backers — a network of Catholic, Protestant and Mormon organizations with some 100,000 constituents — can’t begin gathering the 120,500 signatures necessary to qualify the measure for the November ballot until the governor has signed the bill into law. That should happen within two weeks.
Gary Randall, executive director of the Faith and Freedom Network, which is leading the coalition of bill opponents, said he feels they have a good shot at getting their numbers.
“There’s a broad coalition of organizations involved with us,” Randall said. “We’re not assuming everyone will be on board, but conservatively there are 100,000 people involved in those organizations. So, based on that, I think the chances are pretty good.”
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Gays asking Washington lawmakers to expand rights Seattle Times - United States
State Sen. Ed Murray of Seattle and five other gay members of the Legislature are working on a bill that would expand the rights approved in the 2007 domestic-partnership law.
Nearly 5,000 couples have registered to claim rights such as hospital visits and community property. Murray wants to add pensions and parenting and tax issues.
Murray also told The Olympian he also plans to introduce a same-sex marriage bill but thinks it’s too early to push for full marriage rights for same-sex couples.
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undreds rally at UW against anti-gay marriage column in campus newspaper
About 200 people attended a rally Friday at the University of Washington to protest an anti-gay marriage column that ran in the student newspaper, The Daily.
Protesters say language in the column, including a reference to bestiality, coupled with the accompanying image of a man standing next to a sheep, amounted to hate speech. But speakers differed on whether the paper should be censured.
Ana Mari Cauce, the UW’s dean of arts and sciences, talked about her own struggles coming out as a lesbian and the hurt she felt in reading the column.
“But the antidote to free speech is more free speech,” she said. “I am thankful that I am living in a country where everyone has the right to express their opinions.”
On the other hand, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) this week passed a resolution demanding the paper apologize.
However, the editor-in-chief of The Daily, Sarah Jeglum, said this week she stands behind the decision to run the column and isn’t planning any sort of apology. In a Friday column, Jeglum said she’d learned “Free speech is for everyone. It’s not just for the majority, and it’s not just for the minority.”
That difference of opinion, if not resolved, could lead to a showdown between the editors of the paper and the elected student-body representatives who sit on the publications board which oversees The Daily.
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