Marriage advocates collect enough signatures for Washington state ballot measure

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Washington's Secretary of State Sam Reed

Seattle, Wash., Sep 2, 2009 / 06:55 am (CNA).- Preliminary, unofficial figures from the Washington state Elections Division shows that a sufficient number of signatures have been gathered to place on the ballot Referendum 71, a measure that would preserve the unique place of marriage by rescinding the state legislature’s expansion of homosexual domestic partnership benefits.

Protect Marriage Washington, which is sponsoring the proposal, submitted nearly 138,000 signatures on July 25. State checkers of the signatures accepted 121,617 signatures. According to David Ammons, writing on the blog of the Washington Secretary of State’s Office, 120,557 were required to secure a ballot spot.

The ballot proposal, known as Referendum 71, would overturn Senate Bill 5688, which passed the Washington legislature in April. The bill gave homosexual couples all the state-provided benefits that married couples receive.

The law was supposed to take effect July 26 but was delayed until the signature count was completed, the Associated Press says. The law will not take effect unless it is approved in the November 3 election.

In a news release on its website, the Washington State Catholic Conference said it opposed SB 5688 because proponents publicly stated that it was intended to extend existing marriage rights to same-sex couples “as a precursor to legalizing gay marriage in Washington State.”

“While opposing all unjust discrimination against any individual, WSCC upholds marriage as a union between a man and a woman, which is the foundation of our civil society,” the conference said.

The Washington Secretary of State’s Office claims that the margin of confirmed signatures for Referendum 71 may be the narrowest ever to qualify for the ballot. However, the number may rise if new voter registrations and missing electronic voter signatures are found.

Before the number of signatures was confirmed, Protect Marriage Washington had expressed concern about “statistical abnormalities” in the signature count. While the rate of erroneous signatures among the first 72,273 signatures counted stood at about 9.5 percent, among the last 6,922 signatures the error rate jumped to 12.8 percent.

Protect Marriage Washington also noted that Secretary of State Sam Reed’s executive secretary is the daughter of James Pharris, an attorney from the state Attorney General’s office assigned to defend the rights of Referendum 71 opponents.

Some opponents of Referendum 71 intend to adopt a tactic used by pro-homosexual groups in California to shame or boycott supporters of Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that successfully defended marriage between a man and a woman. WhoSigned.org plans to publish the names of signatories to the Referendum 71 petitions following the signatures’ certification by the Washington Secretary of State.

Referendum 71 backers charged that the site could be used for retaliation and intimidation, pointing to the harassment that took place in California. A federal district court judge has temporarily blocked the signatures’ release, with a new hearing scheduled for September 3.

Opponents of Referendum 71 have filed a legal challenge to the referendum, which Superior Court Judge Julie Spector has taken under advisement. She said she will rule on the case on Wednesday morning.

Comments: 4

Subscriber comments:

Published by: psalm
Detroit/MI/USA 09/03/2009 12:09 AM EST

Chuck Anziulewicz Who is quoting scripture? So called 'gay marriage' can be argued against in ways other than "quoting scripture". There are arguments from natural law, jurisprudence, anthropology...etc. When you have to go as far as redefining the very nature and meaning of something, your arguments are void to begin with. Are you also going to argue for the 'right' of any combination of people to get married? Brother and sister, parent and child, sister and sister....Once you stray from the nature of what marriage truly is, you cannot in principle refuse marriage 'rights' to any persons or group of people. What do you think will happen if so called "gay marriage" becomes a 'right' in this country? What will happen is persecution of anyone who refuses to accept the homosexual agenda. To deny this is ignorant.

Published by: Warren Anderson
Victoria, BC, Canada 09/02/2009 02:33 PM EST

We in the Pac Northwest often share similar directions in matters of economics, societal mores, etc. We in BC have experienced a similar progression to what Washington State is experiencing. What is truly shameful is how the homosexual lobby attempts to bully law abiding citizens into giving into their demands which will contribute to the further degradation of civil society. The same worn out tactic is not working, i.e., labeling people homophobes to distract people from the substance of the argument. Such name calling merely shows the weakness of the gay lobby’s arguments. So, they resort to intimidation tactics, physical violence and a twisted reading of the Constitution (arguing from an absence of evidence) to attempt to justify a sexual partnership that is, if recent meta-analyses are worth anything, proving to be a sham which puts children in same-gender households at real risk, exposing kids to sexualized domestic violence, drug abuse and sexual abuse. Depression and self abuse attributed to gender confusion is significantly prevalent among children in same-sex households. Gay “marriage” is not a right, nor is abortion a right. Both agendas, pro-gay and pro-abortion, are abuses of fundamental human rights founded on Judeo-Christian principles which are most certainly enshrined in the American and Canadian Constitutions (charters, bills of right).

Published by: Chuck Anziulewicz
Spring Hill, West Virginia 09/02/2009 12:03 PM EST

I suspect that if the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been put up for a popular vote in the Deep South, they would still have segregated drinking fountains, swimming pools, and Blacks would still be sitting at the back the bus.

The United States is not a theocracy. At least not yet. You can quote Scripture until the cows come home, but the fact remains that there is simply no Constitutional justification for denying law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples the exact same legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities that Straight couples have always taken for granted. Personally I am not going to argue over terminology; you can call it a "marriage" or a "civil union" or a "domestic partnership" for all I care, as long as Gay and Straight couples are treated EQUALLY, as specified under the 14th Amendment.

And let me reassure you: In states where Gay and Straight couples ARE treated equally, nothing at all has happened to "traditional marriage." Most people always have been and always will be Straight, and they will continue to date, get engaged, marry and build lives and families together as they always have. Voting YES of Referendum 71 will not affect that. Furthermore, churches will never be forced to marry Gay couples, any more than they are forced to marry Muslim couples.

Published by: Alexander Williams
Tacoma, WA 09/02/2009 11:29 AM EST

The only thing these people "advocate" for is discrimination. They are anti-family and hate the liberty which is guaranteed to all american citizens. They are the antithesis of patriots and, in the end, are a danger to the health of the Republic.

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