Why has Republican State Senator Bill Finkbeiner (Redmond) suddenly turned his back on his partyâs commitment to killing the gay civil rights bill? His political reversal on Monday, the first day of this yearâs legislative session, was great news for supporters of gay rights, who have watched the bill fail for almost 30 years running. There are now enough votes to pass a measure that last year died in the senate by one âno.â But Finkbeinerâs election-year decision to buck his own party begs the question: Why? (And why now?)
The senator answers with a dramatic anecdote from last yearâs floor debate. The bill had passed the house and was in the senate, where Republicans, led by Finkbeiner, were poised to defeat itâbut only if they held a united front. Finkbeiner, a social moderate who began his career as a Democrat and twice voted for the bill before switching parties in 1994, didnât like what he heard on the senate floor.
âIt really struck home to me that a lot of this opposition is coming because people think there is something wrong with being gay,â he recalled. âI didnât feel comfortable with that argument at all.â
Finkbeiner delivers this anecdote to support a transformation narrative that he is pushing on the mainstream mediaâa narrative that suggests Finkbeiner had a recent personal revelation on gay rights. âI now find it is both appropriate and necessary for the state to make it clear that [discrimination] is not acceptable,â he said in a statement reprinted in a front-page Seattle Post-Intelligencer article on Tuesday. But the fact is Finkbeiner voted against the bill last year despite feeling then, and more than a decade ago, that homophobia was driving its opponents.
Finkbeiner explains his ânoâ vote by saying he was concerned the billâwhich specifically bars discrimination against homosexuals in employment, housing, and financial transactionsâmight lead to frivolous lawsuits. Itâs an objection favored by moderate Republicans who find the moral and religious objections distasteful, but canât resist the political utility of torpedoing the bill. And in Finkbeinerâs case, the utility was huge: hanging on to his post as leader. But, as Finkbeiner now admits, the frivolous-lawsuit objection doesnât make sense: Republicans never complain about similar legal protections already in place for women, racial minorities, and religious people.
Could it be, then, that Finkbeinerâs ânoâ vote last year was less a step in some personal transformation than an example of his willingness to sacrifice his personal beliefs in order to hold onto power? Finkbeiner, no longer the senate minority leader and currently facing a pro-gay-rights Democratic challenger in November, wonât answerâon the record. And the billâs longtime backer, Representative Ed Murray (D-Seattle), takes the politically useful position of shielding Finkbeiner from scrutiny.
âI think itâs time to stop guessing about his motives,â Murray said. âThe fact that he did this now is a courageous, courageous decision.â
Perhaps. Or it may just be a political, political decision. In which case it would prove what liberals have long suspected: Some Republicans donât really believe in their partyâs opposition to gay rights, they just go along with it because itâs useful in helping them maintain political power.
eli@thestranger.com