If Christian conservatives succeed in putting gay rights up to a public vote this November, allowing voters to reverse a gay-rights bill that passed in spring, there's one explanation for how they did it: They lied. Campaigners have insisted that domestic partnerships are actually gay marriage (less popular in polls) and that equal rights will require teaching public-school children about "graphic gay sex practices." They even tricked gay-marriage supporters into signing the petition.
Two days before turning in their signatures, a petitioner was walking around a Wal-Mart parking lot in Port Angeles telling people that the referendum would give voters an opportunity to decide whether they are "in favor" of giving marriage licenses to homosexual couples—implying that it would expand gay rights, when it is intended to do the opposite. Chris Mason, a 27-year-old Massachusetts man filming a documentary on marriage equality, watched the petitioner do it. Mason says that he spoke to one woman who signed the petition. "She told me she was in favor of same-sex marriage licenses," he says.
The petitioner also obfuscated the fact that the petition would actually put the measure up to a vote, asking, "Have you folks had a chance to answer our one survey question? We just want to know if you're in favor of giving homosexual couples legal marriage licenses."
But lying is legal. David Ammons, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office, says, "The state supreme court has said you can lie in campaign utterances and campaign materials. We have no jurisdiction over extra words and sales pitches that sponsors choose to put on petitions." In other words, the Referendum 71 petitions could claim that the measure would ban abortion, cure cancer, guarantee salvation... almost anything (short of threats or bribery) to persuade people to sign it. "We are all for truth in advertising and voters getting clear and accurate information," says Ammons. "But we simply don't have police power [over] what campaigns say about their ballot measure."
On July 25, Protect Marriage Washington, the organization that mobilized the petitioners, delivered what it claimed were 138,000 signatures to the Washington Secretary of State Office in Olympia—nearly 18,000 more than required to place a referendum on the ballot. That's in the "iffy range" for what it needs to qualify, Ammons says. According to elections officials, the campaign will probably need about 150,000 total signatures to make up for the signatures that are typically held invalid for having wrong addresses or other inaccuracies.
Gay marriage holds about 37 percent support in this state, according to a poll released last October by the University of Washington. Domestic partnerships—what R-71 actually applies to—have 66 percent support. (That figure represents people who support domestic partnerships plus people who support gay marriage.) In other words, if they only talked about domestic partnerships, they would have a harder time getting people to sign. On each petition sheet, just above the lines where people sign their name, bold type claims that the domestic-partnership bill "makes same sex marriages legal" and that "public schools K-12 will be forced to teach that same-sex marriage and homosexuality are normal."
When The Stranger contacted Larry Stickney, the director of Protect Marriage Washington, to ask him to explain the inaccuracies, he said, "We have made our case over and over." But when we pointed out that the ballot title written by the attorney general's office states plainly that "registered domestic partnerships are not marriages" and that equating the two was false, Stickney hung up the phone.
"There is nothing in the bill that forces schools to teach homosexuality or that same-sex marriage is normal," says state representative Jamie Pedersen, who sponsored the domestic-partnership bill in the state house. The bill also pertains exclusively to a Washington State domestic- partnership program instituted in 2007, extending all the state-granted rights of marriage to registered same-sex couples. Over 5,000 couples have registered for the program. But a partnership is not a marriage. Partners could use sick leave from work to care for a partner or share health-insurance plans rights under the bill, but they would still lack the 1,049 federal rights that come with marriage. Immediately after Governor Chris Gregoire signed the bill, the newly formed Protect Marriage Washington, run by an alleged wife beater and an Oregon man who owes tens of thousands in back taxes ["Know Thy Enemy," Dominic Holden, June 4], filed R-71 to repeal the law—putting it on hold—and began fooling people into signing their petition.
The state will verify how many of the 138,000 signatures submitted are valid by mid-August. If the petition qualifies for the ballot, the domestic-partnership bill will remain in limbo until the general election in November. 
