Washington State Referendum 71: DO NOT SIGN!

[dudelovenext]

Sorry if this pisses off some of my friends that don't support this, but...this is something I agree with. My support is behind NOT signing Referendum 71.

Nicked from libraryraven...

Friends and Family in Washington State-

Regardless of where you stand on gay marriage, our state is at serious risk of taking a step back in time--and equal rights--if Referendum 71 makes it to the ballot.

Here's the deal...on May 19th of this year, Governor Gregoire signed a bill into law that assured that all WA families are treated the same with the same protections, rights, and obligations as our neighbors. The law ensures that registered domestic partners and married couples are treated equally under the law.

This is not marriage and not tied to religion at all. This is about equal rights like letting Dan and I make health care decisions for each other if one of us is sick, allowing us to visit a each other in the hospital, and giving us community property rights, probate rights, joint responsibility for debts, and other protections.

OK- hope you are still reading. This is the part that you have to pay attention to and act on.

Referendum 71 has one purpose– to repeal this law and take away rights.

Between today and the end of July you will most likely encounter someone trying to collect your signature. If they get more than 120,577 signatures, the referendum to take away these rights will go up for a public vote.

This is scary--remember what happened in CA with Prop 8? When a majority votes on a minority, the minority has a super slim chance of coming out on top.

So what can you do? Please forward this to your more conservative friends and relatives in WA state and make sure that they are educated about this and aware of what they are going to be asked to sign. And don't sign.

Comments

[theevil-chie.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this! I haven't kept up with the news in quite awhile, so I didn't even know this was going on! How horrible : (

[combat-pandamon.livejournal.com]

I'd like to pass this argument to you, the head of the criminal justice department at my school thinks it's very persuasive, and I'll be sending it to the Governor since I know they read it XD I actually got a response from Senator Murray a couple days ago.

Marriage is an expression of love, and the First Amendment protects freedom of expression. The preamble also protects people's right to the pursuit of happiness. The preamble is as important as any of the Amendments, and the whole Constitution is equally important. The First Amendment also says that there shall be no law respecting the establishment of any religion. My point is that these bans are based on the interpretation of the Bible that marriage is defined as between a man and a woman for the purpose of recreation. People argue that two men/women can't create a child, but many straight couples do not have children. In fact, some do it just for the tax benefits such as tax deductions. There's also the matter of separation between church and state. Treating a pair of two men or women differently than a man and a women is also sex based discrimination.

[fearless-son.livejournal.com]

If someone asks me to sign it, I will engage them in a debate about why they should abandon their plan.

[miss-pants.livejournal.com]

... you have friends that would agree to sign something like that?

it's so depressing, all this type of backwards movement.

[zeonic-miko.livejournal.com]

Wow this is really sad. I hope this crap won't go through, I'll send all my luck washington's way.