So, one of the key arguments made by Right Wing Loser Bigots about civil rights for gays is that these aren’t civil rights, they’re special privileges, rights no one else has. Right Wing Loser Bigots also despise activist judges who purportedly create such rights, like, you know, the right to go to the same public school as your neighbor, or drink from the same water fountain or sit wherever you like on the bus, regardless of the color of your skin.

But, as always, when the tables are turned, RWLBs are all for activist judges creating new rights, in this case the right to privacy (?!WTF?!) for signers of petitions which are, by law in Washington State, public records and so available for anyone to read and publish. This battle has started making national press, with this story in today’s Chicago Tribune putting it very well:

The fierce fight over same-sex marriage in California and elsewhere is creating pressure to recognize a new free-speech right that could keep petition signatures secret.

Second money quote:

First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh of UCLA questioned whether petition signers have a constitutional right to anonymity.

“As a matter of 1st Amendment law, you have the right to speak anonymously but you don’t have a constitutional right to essentially engage in a legally significant action anonymously,” he said. “The state can demand you identify yourself on a petition, and at that point it seems the state is entitled to publish it.”

Signing a petition is more akin to a lawmaker’s vote, which is usually required to be made in public so the citizenry can monitor the progress of the laws that will govern them, legal analysts say.

The story is pretty balanced, though it gives the last word to a guy who fears that RWLBs will be harassed by the nasty gays and their allies.

On a side note, one of the writers of this piece is named David Savage (no relation), and I imagine he’ll be getting some email meant for another Savage.

21 replies on “New & Special Rights for Right Wing Loser Bigots”

  2. I ask the wider Slog Commenting community: Who’s a bigger loser, someone who writes for a third-rate paper, or someone who reads said third-rate paper and bothers to leave comments?

    Thus ends the troll-feeding.

  5. I give points for the thought provoking posts and comments I’ve had the opportunity to ponder, which without this third-rate paper I would be without knowledge of.

  6. WAshington State could design and approve a private way of putting referendums on the ballot, I suppose, including provisions that people come into secret booths with drawable curtains and sign in secret, with it all being put in a lock box, like ballots. But we didn’t. We created a PETITION system and for centures PETITIONS have been public documents because you don’t sign them in private; you see other names when you sign, you sign in a public place in front of some idiot like Eyman who’s not even a records and elections worker, or volunteer; then the petitions are collected by someone like Eyman, or the antistadium people, whatev, and unless hey’re total idiots they MAKE COPIES before turning them in to the elections bureau (cuz, like, what if the elections bureau loses some? ouch!) and they also PUT ALL THE DATA INTO A DATA BASE don’t you Eyman? And don’t you, R 71 gay haters?

    This is a joke, they’ve been mining that database for contributions and what not and they’re in court claiming it’s all private. What a bunch of lying liars. It’s like the bigger the lie, the more they get away with it with stupid credulous fucking hack judges like that one in Tacoma who sees petition forms where everyone who signed it after the one on the first line SAW all the other signatures and he says it’s private.

  7. @2
    Obviously, the biggest loser is someone who writes for a third-rate “paper” AND bothers to leave comments responding to trolls.

  12. Let’s face it, even without their white hoods and robes, the Talibangelists still hate America and our 21st Century values.

  14. “Signing a petition is more akin to a lawmaker’s vote…”

    I would take it a step further and say that voting for any public initiative is akin to a lawmaker’s vote and those votes should be published as roll calls…same as legislatures.

    This goes along with my pet theory about voting which is the only way it can ever be insured to be fair is to make all votes for any election be public.

    Unless people are willing to stand up for any candidate they vote for publically, we’ll never know when the books get cooked.

    And if a person fears retribution for a vote, then there are bigger problems which have to do with people not being truly economically free…and hence not politically free.

  16. #15

    I disagree wholeheartedly.

    The very essence of democracy is the open ballot with free — truly free — and independent citizens exercising their politic voice directly.

    Today we have the technology to make irrelevant all representational systems and replace them with direct e-Legislatures. However, people must end being political consumers, who anonymously select canned products off the ballot, and turn into political producers…displaying their public voice in all matters.

  17. Chicago Fan, there was some weird dirt recently about a Chicago congresswoman. Cheating on her husband with a woman? a Turkish spy? What’s your local third rate dirt?

  19. If petition signatures are private and can’t be part of the public record, then how can you claim that proper oversight and checks of signature verification are taking place? No valid signatures, no referendum. QED.

  21. Lynchings.

    People dying for the right to vote.

    Churches being bombed and vandalized (familiar?)

    Cross burnings, nooses used to intimidate.

    Denial of access to public facilities.

    And you have the intellectual dishonesty to invoke:

    “activist judges who purportedly create such rights, like, you know, the right to go to the same public school as your neighbor, or drink from the same water fountain or sit wherever you like on the bus, regardless of the color of your skin.”

    No you won’t do it without being called for the bs that it is.

    I don’t know if this is one of Savage’s new tactics, if he is just outsourcing his stupidity to Chicago or if he is just using a pseudonym as he has done in the past. But what I do know is that this is just further prove of his contempt for the African American community.

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