In case you haven't heard, a preliminary check of signatures for anti-gay Referendum 71 shows the measure may qualify for the ballot. Some quick math: Elections officials scanned 5,646 petition signatures and found that 4,991 were valid as of last Friday, says secretary of state's office spokesman David Ammons. That's a 11.34 inaccuracy rate (which is unusually low compared to a standard inaccuracy rate for Washington petitions of only about 18 percent). Referendum backer Protect Marriage Washington submitted 137,689 total signatures, which would give them a 14 percent cushion over the minimum. But they're beating that cushion by three points one point. [Note: The 14 percent figure is the pad over the minimum amount cited by the secretary of state's office, but as commenter nb notes, that only allows a 12 percent inaccuracy rate on the total number of signatures. So R-71 is walking a fine line.] If they keep it up through the rest of the signature count, the religious bigots will succeed at putting domestic partner rights of gay couples up to a public vote in November.

And how did they gather all those signatures? They lied. Read about their lying strategy—tricking gay marriage supporters into thinking it would help gay rights and telling homophobes this was about stopping "gay marriage"—over here.