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News & ArtsWednesday, August 5, 2009
Homo Wrong Way Voters
Posted by Dominic Holden on Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 4:25 PM
What's worse than someone voting to repeal the state domestic partnership law? A gay-rights supporter doing it on accident. Already, while we wait to find out if Referendum 71 qualifies for the ballot, plenty of folks who love the gays (and revile the anti-gay bigots) have sworn up and down that they will vote against it. Like this person, who wrote a touching letter to the editor of The Columbian:
Pursuit of happiness is our rightI am one of those straight people who opposes Referendum 71, which would repeal a bill extending rights to gays and lesbians. God did not leave me in charge of hate and discontent and decisions to make other human beings unhappy.
Every human deserves the right to be happy.
I will let God be the judge, leave these people alone and allow them the same happiness and freedoms that everyone should enjoy. I am a white Caucasian and I have lived with a black man for the past 10 years and have never been happier — do you want to take away my rights, too?
Referendum 71 is just another fine example of organized religion and is very non-Christian of these people. To me it boils down to hate mongers.
Connie Smith
Vancouver
Oh, Connie. Sweet pea. You clearly want gays to be happy, to enjoy equal rights, and to live with black men for decades. But did you know that "opposing" Referendum 71 is exactly what the hate mongers want you to do?
Listen up, all y'all—especially Connie—here's how referendums work: First the legislature must pass a bill and the governor must sign it into law. Before the law takes effect, anyone can file a referendum. If that person (or organization) gets enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, the law then goes up for a public vote. A vote to "approve" the referendum upholds the law; a vote to "reject" the referendum would repeal it. Thus, opposing Referendum 71 would repeal rights for gay partners; supporting it would maintain those rights. Capiche?
Connie's not the only one confused. The homophobic religious fuckwads who are trying to put gay rights up to a public vote also have this backwards. Protect Marriage Washington, which sponsored the referendum, proudly ballyhoos that the Knights of Columbus endorse Referendum 71 on its website. They even work their wrong-way support into a resolution that reads in part:
Whereas, the Knights of Columbus nationally and locally are duty bound to defend traditional marriage in American society and culture,Therefore, be it resolved: Council 1379 of the Knights of Columbus endorses Referendum 71, filed in Olympia on May 4, 2009, in order to overturn SB 5688.
Reporters make the same mistake. In an AP article last Wednesday, the author gets his wires crossed when discussing a group that wants to release the names of everyone who signed the petition, despite gay rights groups that think it's a bad idea. "The official campaign opposing the referendum doesn't support the effort to publicize petition signers' identities," the article says. In reality, the group that wants voters to approve Referendum 71 doesn't want the names released (neither side wants the names released).
"Unless supporters of the State's Domestic Partnership Law start educating their friends and family that we will need to vote 'approve' on Referendum 71 to retain the law," says Josh Friedes, a spokesman for Equal Rights Washington, "equality minded voters could wake up to a nasty surprise after the November election."
So if Referendum 71 makes it onto the ballot—but bow to Allah and kneel for Jesus that it doesn't—vote to "approve" it.
1
"Those bigots lied there asses off to get this thing on the ballot so I'm going to vote for it."
That's correct even if it doesn't sound right.
3
This is freaking insidious. The George Orwells and Joseph Hellers of the world couldn't have concocted something so brilliantly counterintuitive.
Thus, the opposition of the confused will cancel out.
Unless, of course, one side can see to it that their followers are LESS confused.
Which Dominic is trying to do here. I think. I'm not sure. I'm confused.
6
Since there's nobody there to verify that we aren't pushing the error rate up, I expect that today's error rate should be a round 14.6, as planned per the memo. After that, we'll work on indoctrinating all children (especially Loveschild's children!) and turning all maternal care clinics into forced abortion centers.
She's so smart, and we can't let our guard down if we want to destroy society.
8
We don't want a Prop 8 debacle to happen in Washington because of complacency. Waiting with bated breath,
a Seattle ex-pat.
13
I think commercials featuring people who support gay-rights that were 'duped' into signing the petition would be extremely powerful. This probably means no one will think of it and it will never get done but the ability to pull it off is there.
Hopefully this point will be moot and the ref. won't have enough signatures. Part of the reason I imagine the rate of bad sigs keeps going up is that they won't find any duplicates on the first day, just unregistered names. The more names they go through, the more duplicates they will find.
15
Is that really the sign Washington Families Standing Together is gonna use??? "Preserve the Domestic Partnership Law?"WTF WTF WTF WTF!!!
Double fuck piss bitch--we might as well give up now.
WFST needs to send out flyers telling everyone of those pigfuckers in the sticks that approving Ref 71 will send every single one of us gawdamn hummuhsekshals to the gas chambers. Tell 'em it means mandatory abortions for gay babies. Tell 'em it means old-fashioned witch burnings in the town square!! They'll sprint to their polling place to vote to approve it!!
Tell 'em anything except that it helps us, which--DUUUHHH--is the opposite of what they want to do.
Fuck fuck fuck
It IS confusing, though. Sounds like a lot of misinformation's out there -- and that means we gotta step our game up.
Except that according to Dan Savage, no gay civil union/marriage bill can withstand a popular vote in today's America, so there MUST be a majority people who oppose this. Which works out in favor of the gays according to that argument.
How does voting to approve the referendum uphold the law? I really want this explained in some dumbed down way for me because I am lost. I'm not in Washinton so I don't suppose it's important for me to understand.
Wikipedia makes it seem to me like Referendum 71 is a positive thing for gay rights..."Referendum 71 is a proposed ballot referendum that asks Washington voters to approve the expansion of Domestic Partnership rights and obligations in Washington's originally limited domestic partnership legislation. The expansion was signed by Governor Christine Gregoire on May 18, 2009."
From what I understand though, it will actually take away equal rights for gays and lesbians. Okay...I've kinda got that. So what I want to understand is how approving this referendum if it were to get in the ballot would be the right thing to do.
I don't think I'm stupid but I really feel stupid right about now.
27
Gay rights advocates opposed putting the legislation up for popular vote because certain things should not, ideally, be subject to majority rule, but should be recognized as inalienable rights. So, we refused to sign the petition to send the issue to a popular referendum.
On the other hand, if it does get put up for a popular vote, those of who support equal rights for gay couples should vote for it.
In any case, I don't think it's too insidious. It's just called reading the ballot questions carefully.
The gays should stick to their principles,
no ones rights should be subject to vote-
boycott the R71 election!!
Religion has branded homosexuals as wrong, sinners and deviant. Until we are re-branded we will not have equality.
WE MUST put Equality BEFORE Religion.
WE are Now Wrong.
I just made that up.
Dan, you can use that in a column if you like. (unless it reminds you of your unrequited obsession for Carrie and is too painful...)
You may be slightly misinformed about Religion wanting to brand homosexuals as wrong, sinners and deviant.
I think most denominations would rather use an identifying tattoo; maybe a big red 'Q' on the ass (with a little subscript 'a' if they are AIDS infected)- to warn the unwary.
But now that you suggest it branding probably would be more fun...
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