Larry Stickney, president of the Washington Values Alliance, has a noon appointment to file a referendum that, if passed, would repeal Washington’s most recent domestic partnership bill, says Washington Secretary of State spokesman David Ammons.
But who, exactly, is running the show?
It’s unclear which group will actually run the referendum. Faith and Freedom had been fundraising for the referendum, but the group, led by the carpetbagging and tax-evading Gary Randall, may not run the campaign after all. “The latest buzz we’re getting is that it will be run by the Washington Values Alliance,” says Brian Vysltra, a spokesman for the Secretary of State.
For more on the skeevy nature of Faith and Freedom, check out this diary at Washblog by poster Lurleen.
The major recipient of PAC expense payouts was Northern Concepts LLC. Northern Concepts LLC is owned by the Faith & Freedom PAC Vice Chair and former F&F lobbyist, Jon Russell. He and his wife reportedly “run the business from their home”. The PAC paid Mr. Vice Chair $3,790 in “event planning” fees. The previous year, he had received a Warning Letter from the Public Disclosure Commission dated March 8, 2007 for failure to file his monthly lobbyist expense report (L-2) for January, 2007. Commission files relating to Jon’s tenure with FFN contain several memos between himself and the Commission regarding his mistakes in depositing funds in the wrong accounts and failure to submit reports on time. For the latter he was assessed a fine on June 3, 2008.
It’s the endless multi-level marketing nature of conservatism that’s the problem. A few rich and ultra-conservative nutballs pay the wannabes to do their dirty work for them, and the wannabes call themselves bidnessmen. Let’s call it “the Tim Eyman model.”
We should just take up a collection and pay these people to sell diet formulas and steam cleaners on late night television, give them a Chamber card, maybe they’d go away finally.
It occurred to me a long time ago that scam marketers and GOP pitchmen might be the same people.
If you read Sean Salazar’s site (the GOP patsy up against Patty Murray), his “campaign manager” has been an event planner for twenty four years. I guess wingnut welfare is a long-term career choice.
Actually, having reviewed his website, I noted Sean Salazar’s manager is a former Repub State Senator who spent the relection he lost in California ignoring his campaign. I think he is quoted saying he “knows a lot about campaigns.” Yeah, how not to run one is his greatest skill. Great model for an underdog campaign, if it is a campaign at all.
3 TF
I figure him for skimming what he can get from the poor sap Salazar.
Salazar himself is the perfect latter-day GOP stealth candidate. A Latino with no public-service record, he mouths vague generalities to the public, and I am guessing runs Rossi-style private talks to GOP audiences where he tells them what he dares not tell us: his tired, hackish GOP dinosaur views on every subject.
You’d think a young, ambitious Latino, if he were smart or talented, would realize that the Democratic party is the best-bet for his ambitions.
Smart? Talented? This guy Salazar figures to be neither. Doctor of Chiropractic from Palmer West Chiropractic College. Uh-huh, he’s a real comer.
Back closer to topic: The only thing Washington Republicans know how to organize are circular firing squads.
What a bunch of ULTRA douche bags. WHO in their god forsaken mind campaigns to REDUCE someone’s rights? I mean really. It’s a religious stance? So pork is an abomination (Muslim), or dancing and music are immoral (Amish), or you can’t work on the Sabbath (Jew). FINE. I don’t care. I don’t want you to violate your “values”…whether it’s pork, drinking, working on holy days, or gay marriage. Whatever is meaningful to you, GREAT! But if I’m not a Jew…I can eat pork. If I’m not a Muslim, I can drink. How DARE these “moral values” scum bags dictate their religion on ME! I don’t want the Jews telling me what meat I can put on a sandwich, or the Amish telling me I can’t listen to music. If YOU think being gay is a magical sin, FINE, but that’s YOUR church, NOT mine! Leave me alone!
Sorry…does it OFFEND you that you have to acknowledge that there are gays, or see them in public or know they have the same rights as you? Imagine in my partner of 15 years could inherit my social security benefits…oh the HORROR! You’re not guaranteed to go through life without being offended. You can’t just change to law to outlaw stuff you “don’t like”. Jews have to “put up with” the fact most folks in the world eat bacon, and they have to SEE it in brunch buffets…do Jews get all upset and try to outlaw bacon even though it IS an abomination to them? No.
Seriously. Who campaigns anymore, in 2009, to keep Jews from moving into a neighborhood…to keep the Irish from getting jobs…to keep black people from marrying whites…to keep women from voting…and now to keep gays from getting married. All done, every single time, to protect our “traditions and values”. Utter bullshit every time. It’s NEVER about protecting anyone. It’s just dumb angry people using group X as random target for their frustrations.
Can someone (prefer Republican) provide me with an example historically where we FOUGHT to restrict someone’s legal rights, and we NOW look back on that is the correct/good thing to do? Any examples?
This is why the Republicans are doomed unless they change. The tides of history are against them. In 50 years no one is going to look back at them as our great moral guardians. They’ll be thought of in EXACTLY the same way as we think of folks now who fought to keep inter-racial marriage illegal. They’ll be the bad guys.
Here we go, more divisiveness from the values brigade. The upside of their swinging at windmills will be that any money the campaign raises is money that won’t go to Republican candidates.
u stupid fucking idiot. a few ultra rich conservatives? what do u call the fucking jew george soros? he has his kike money in every sick deranged idea in this country. u fuck
@7
The can have my beer and bacon when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!
10 mot
anti-semite much?
Does this mean Puffybutt and Marvin the pervert will have to get a divorce?
#10 – Wow
That is why only 21% of the public calls themselves Republicans anymore. The anti-Jew, anti-gay, anti-everything is driving the moderates and independents away.
Again, wow.
Re 14 et al from Statistics:
As usual a liberal seeks to confuse the smoke with the fire.
Unintended consequences of public policy are a fact of legislative life. I don’t care if your partner of 15 years is a man or a woman, gay or straight. I do care if you try to force the consequences of your life style CHOICE on me. Laws are a reflection of the greater moral and ethical basis of the society at large, excluding administrative law, which is usually a straight up money grab.
As such, society has a right to encourage savings by giving tax breaks to those who save. Unintentionally this penalizes the person who spends like a drunken sailor (unless he is the boy wonder president.) Society can encourage home ownership by legislative acts giving tax breaks or other advantages to home owners.
It can also encourage families (real families that is) by giving marraige only to those capable of being a family. This is the basic unit of a functional society, and any culture has a right to encourage and protect it. A mother and father raising their children is how societies have carried on for all of recorded history. Deal with it. Or don’t and take drugs. I don’t really care, but that’s how it is.
You and your partner can inherit each others’ property by consulting an attorney and creating wills. You can get visitation or other hospitalization rights by legal actions. You can do virtually anything a married person can, except marry.
You have completely flipped the real question. It is not whether someone else can impose their beliefs on you. The real question is can you, as a gay man, ask me to subsidize a lifestyle with my tax dollars that I consider morally and physically degenerate? If a heterosexual couple wishes the employment benefits of marriage they should marry. If a gay couple wants one they should also. You can marry a person of the opposite sex at any time you wish. No rights were taken from you, just unrealistic wishes. Live your life however you wish, but don’t ask me to pay for it.
And don’t ask society to pay for it with the continued deterioration of the family caused in large part by liberal policies.
And quit quoting your bullshit 21 percent. It isn’t true. It isn’t a lie, or a damn lie. It is a statistic.
One other thing, statistics. You asked for examples of restricted rights. The entire idea of living in any society is that of giving up unfettered personal freedom. We all voluntarily restrict our rights every day, in big ways and small. We do this for what we perceive to be the greater societal good.
Rousseau theorized that we do this out of self interest. I give up the right to knock my neighbor on the head and take his car. In return society will protect me from a stronger neighbor doing this to me.
He also theorized that we do this only so long as our self interest is still gratified. Once society starts taking more than the sum of benefits recieved any logical person refuses to take part in that society.
That is the position gays are asking Americans to take. We are asked to give up our fundamental values and beliefs and our hard earned money to support lifestyles abhorrent to us. We are asked to, in our judgement, put the very moral reasons we support our society away and jeopardize it. In return for this we get what? The satisfaction of knowing we are good people? Certainly NOT the greater good of our fellow citizens in any case. Not enough thanks.
Since when do you idiots have a problem with tax evaders? I thought that was a requirement to work in the Obama administration.
He’s got some issues.
But then, so does steve-
lost: “That is the position gays are asking Americans to take. We are asked to give up our fundamental values and beliefs and our hard earned money to support lifestyles abhorrent to us. We are asked to, in our judgement, put the very moral reasons we support our society away and jeopardize it.”
What in the hell are you talking about? You surely don’t understand Rousseau, and should not cite the man as support for your nonsense. Gays are asking to be treated as human beings; they do not ask for your money. The last sentence I quote above from you is largely incoherent. If I understand it at all, it has something to do with there being a moral underpinning for any society, which Rousseau did surely propose. There is such an underpinning. For you, however, to suggest that basic human rights for gays undermines that underpinning exposes your opposition to the social compact that binds most Americans. You are part of a fringe group that wants to exclude people who pay their taxes, contribute to their communities, and don’t harm you. Don’t try to sound like an intellectual when you ain’t one, lost.
#15 – GOOD GOD! That is SO ignorant it’s scary. It’s that kind of anti-intellectual “my god says I have to hate you” crap that’s the reason the Republicans (YES 21%) are a joke. A bad joke of anti-evolution, anti-science, anti-intelligence. So your LOGIC is that unless I LET you force me to live YOUR personal religion, that’s somehow me forcing MY views on YOU? LOL LOL LOL LOL. Doesn’t matter that MY religion is ok with my being gay, but I MUST live by your religion or else I’m somehow controlling YOU. WOW that’s stupid even for a Republican!
“I don’t care if your partner of 15 years is a man or a woman, gay or straight. I do care if you try to force the consequences of your life style CHOICE on me.”
YOU’RE the one with a “life style choice” you ignorant fool. Science, that thing you don’t believe in, isn’t on your side here. YOUR choice of a hate filled religion, that like radical Islam, seeks to force itself on others, is the “life style” choice. The KKK is a “life sytle”. Being gay isn’t. But I can’t argue this with you, because you don’t believe in science, math, or logic.
I know you don’t grasp simple logic or facts, but just FYI…marriage is not now, or ever has been, conditioned on having children (which I can by the way, adopted or surrogate). Despite what you think, adopted children are REAL family members you ass. My brother adopted his 2nd child. Believe it or not they consider him their ACTUAL child too…a member of their family you heartless anti-family zealot. Further you fool, 80 year old senior citizens who CAN’T have children can get legally married. Those who don’t WANT to have children can also get married. Unless you want to be PROVEN the illogical hate filled liar you are, you MUST start a petition to make marriages between senior citizens illegal, since they’re not raising families OR having children, but merely getting married for benefits and companionship. By your definition of marriage, companionship is NOT a valid marriage.
I see that Sean Salazar’s wife Jasmine works for the Pork of Seattle, one of the few Republican-controlled government entities left around here (besides the King County Conservation District and the City of Bellevue). Wonder if any Pork of Seattle affiliated businesses will be pouring money into the Salazar campaign?
Stats @ 20
Hey, man, you can’t let the wingies get you worked up. They are swirling down the toilet bowl on the way to the septic tank and they’re getting a bit desperate at the moment. lostinaseaofblue is a bit different than most of our usual trolls here in that he can sound like he’s kind of smart for a sentence or two before he veers off into total wingnuttia. The wingies will lose. Let’s just keep giving them enough rope to hang themselves.
#16 – That’s twisted logic again. Remember, the KKK and that Nazi’s didn’t think they were evil monsters out to destroy the world. They thought they were the GOOD guys! They thought the Jews, gays, gypsies and other “undesirables” were the bad guys. So when the KKK is murdering a black guy, they think they’re the GOOD guys, and the person they’re murdering is the bad guy.
I get you think you’re protecting society from the “evil gays”. But you’re not. You’re the bad guy in the story. The people who fought inter-racial marriage TRULY believe they were protecting America. They really did. MOST of us NOW with the passage of time and the calming of emotions agree that they were NUTS. Bruce Willis can marry Halle Berry and doesn’t diminish America’s morals. I get that you hate gays. History isn’t on your side. I’m NOT destroying the morals of America. The ONLY difference between my life and my (straight) brother is that the person I’m in love with happens to have genitals of the same shape as mine. The rest is the same. I’m not evil, you’re just transferring some ‘issues’ you have onto me as the theoretical “boggy man”.
You’ll never believe it because of how your mind has been poisoned by parents teaching you bad values and hate. But I LIVE my life, I know what I do, what I feel, how I interact with the community and the people in the world. It’s not an abstract argument like it is to you. I know I’m not destroying this country. I don’t think the Jews, blacks or Irish are either. But you have “faith” and I can’t change that. All I can hope is that with time, more and more people like you (the Archie Bunker types) disappear and are replaced by kinder better people. I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry your head and daily life is filled with “disgust” for whole groups of people. That’s not a healthy way to live.
Interesting consequences of progressive legislation …
Back when domestic partnerships were first enacted in 2007 or so, there were a lot of voluntary benefits and very few involuntary burdens. One of the biggest benefits was the ability of the domestic partner to inherit in the same manner as a spouse, if there were no will. The partnership could be automatically dissolved instantly simply by delivering a piece of paper to the other partner and filing it with the Secretary of State.
The 2009 legislation basically makes the domestic partnership the equivalent of marriage under state law, in everything except the name “marriage” itself. And domestic partnerships will now have to be dissolved in court, which can require a year or more of litigation and tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees. Rather than each partner simply walking away with all the property in their own name and no further obligations, one partner can now be awarded property originally belonging to the other partner, required to pay maintenance (alimony), and even required to pay the other partner’s attorney fees.
No doubt, some existing same sex domestic partners will be happy to be transformed into a marriage in all but the formal name. But what about same sex partners who entered into a “contract” with limited burdens, who have now become involuntarily “married” to each other by a decree of the state?
#22 – I know. It’s just frustrating. I KNOW I’m right. I LIVE my life. To these hate filled anti-family zealots, I’m just an abstract evil, which is causing all of the problems in their personal lives. That’s so messed up I don’t know where to start. It’s amazing that people with such little grasp of reality, logic, reason, and most of all, heart…can vote. But the hate filled Archie Bunkers of the world are dying off. Woman can now vote, and the country didn’t crumble. Blacks can marry whites and it wasn’t the end of our society. The Irish and Polish didn’t “contaminate” our society. These nuts like ‘lostinaseaofblue’ have always been historically wrong. But it doesn’t seem to matter HOW many times they’re wrong, they just find a NEW group to substitute and blame for their problems. Gays are just the current one, after that, they’ll find a new scape goat, they always have.
Other funny things about the new legislation …
Under Section 72 of ESSB 5688, a domestic partnership (or other type of civil union, EXCEPT for a marriage) entered into in another state shall be treated as a domestic partnership in Washington. Therefore, under the new law, a domestic partnership entered into in another state is treated as a marriage under Washington law in all aspect, except for the formal title of “marriage”.
At the same time, if two people of the same gender are ACTUALLY MARRIED in another state, then Section 72 does not recognize the marriage in any shape, form or fashion whatsoever, and the married same gender couple are afforded absolutely no rights under Washington law.
So if two men (or two women) have gotten a domestic partnership in California, their legal rights are fully recognized in Washington. But if they got married in Massachusetts, they have absolutely no legal rights in Washington, not even the rights of domestic partners!
re 7: The Jews don’t have to tell me what to put on a sandwich. I surreder. Feed me all the corned beef and pstrami sandwiches you want.
#26 – Yeah, that is one of the funny legal sides of this (marriage vs civil unions). For the LOVE of whatever…can we just drop marriage vs civil union. The ONLY thing the state should do is a civil union. Whether or not you have a “marriage under god” is up to your religion (Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Egyptian, Native American, or Zoroastrianist). I get EACH of those religions thinks the others are wrong and going to hell, or won’t be reincarnated in a higher form or whatever…but that’s not the business of the state. The legal crap, the state license, is a totally different issue from whether Yahweh, Thor, Zeus or Isis blesses my union.
Statistics @ 28
Good point. The battle in California last year was basically about the NAME of the legal relationship. California already had domestic partnerships under state law for same gender couples, with exactly the same rights as opposite gender married couples. Then the California Supreme Court said that same gender couples had the constitutional right to have the NAME of their relationship called marriage, instead of domestic partnership. And then the state constitution was amended to undo this, but still retained domestic partnerships with all the rights of marriage.
#29
Tru nuff. Linguistic battles are responsible for most wars (including this political one).
I’m also tired of hearing about the sacredness of marriage from the straight folks who are responsible for the 50% divorce rate. They get married and (most) promise to God to stay married until they die, for better or worse…then HALF of them get divorced because they get tired of it or find a younger wife (re: John McCain) with bigger breasts. THEN they turn around and rant about the ‘gays’ attacking their sacred institution. whatever. Protecting marriage my ASS…liars.
1. The 15 states with the highest divorce rates in 2005, all 15 voted for Bush in 2004. All of them.
2. Of the 12 lowest states for divorce rates, 10 voted for Kerry.
3. Massachusetts, where gay marriage is allowed (and where, according to Republicans, civilization would fall apart), has the lowest divorce rate in the country.
The real reason the righties are against gay civil unions is that all righties are closet dick suckers and are worried that if they are too tempted, they won’t be able to resist riding the big stick!
LOL!
Facts have never been the strong suit of the Republican party. Dude, all of the Repub Presidential candidate said they didn’t “believe” in evolution (which isn’t up for scientific debate). The fact that the first state with gay marriage has the lowest divorce rate, and the state with the highest divorce rate (Arkansas) is one of the most Republican states is HILARIOUS! Reality just isn’t a friend of the modern Republican.
Statistics @ 30
1. The 15 states with the highest divorce rates in 2005, all 15 voted for Bush in 2004. All of them.
2. Of the 12 lowest states for divorce rates, 10 voted for Kerry.
This may or may not mean there was a higher tendency for people who have been divorced to vote for Bush, than among the general population of voters.
For example, Bush carried most of the states with the highest percentage of black voters in both 2000 and 2004 (such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina). McCain also carried these same states in 2008.
Of course, neither Bush nor McCain did very well with black voters at all, with Bush getting about 10 percent and McCain managing only about five percent.
Statistics et al:
I never once mentioned a religion or faith. I did not mention the Bible, the Quran or any other book sacred to a religion. You did. A confusing mishmash of theologically competing faiths is what you actually bring up. Faith is not relevant to the issue.
Societal morals are. The fact that an 80 year old couple can marry has no more bearing on the matter than the fact that the Moon is a satelite of the Earth. Any society has the right to protect its’ most cherished and fundamental institutions, like marraige.
Nor did I mention, anywhere, womens’ rights, the right of interracial couples to marry, or any of the other red herrings you drag through a logical debate with your hysterical nonsense. I have dated almost exclusively people not in my ‘race,’ or ethnicity. I am not bragging, merely demonstrating in fact as well as theory that I have no problem with genetically determined characteristics being protected in law against discrimination.
I never said adult consensual homosexual relations should be penalized civilly or criminally. Your consensual choices and the consequences thereof are your concern, not that of the state. I never said that you should be denied any one of the benefits of marraige, save the name and license. In post 28 you were correct, in part. It is entirely and only about the name, the title. Liberals don’t get this, but words have definite meaning. Words like family, marraige, husband and wife convey something important to understand if we are to live in an ordered society. And we have a cultural right to protect and encourage its’ most basic elements, even if that means you can’t marry.
I admire your brother for taking in a child in need of a home. That child stands a much better chance of being a successful participant in his culture in that Mother/Father construct than he or she ever would with you and your partner. If 5% of the population is gay, it simply follows that the social structure in which a child grows, and which he or she emulates, should be heterosexual to prepare them for adult life.
Your characteristic is not genetically determined. You made a choice at some point and must live with the good and bad consequences of that choice. We all do. For instance, I bought a second house and can’t make my usual trip to Europe this year as a consequence. That is my problem. In the same way the consequences of your choices are yours.
If you insist on genetic determination of your sexual orientation what differentiates you from a rapist or a child molestor? What differentiates you from someone who practices bestiality? These are sexual proclivities society penalizes but under your theory these people had no choice in their sexuality and should not be penalized. Nonsense, I know, but the logical result of current misguided thinking on homosexuality.
You have placed yourself in a dilemna. Either your orientation is hard wired and society cannot judge it, as race or gender is, or it is chosen. If sexuality is hardwired no expression of it can be sanctioned by the larger society. More to the point if behavior is genetic, as your pet thinkers would like to believe, is any exhibition of it subject to sanction? The result of these wrong headed theories is chaos, it is anarchy. I know liberals would enjoy that, but for the normal members of our civilization some order is required.
The other horn of the dilemna is that if the behavior is not genetically mandated it is choice. If it is choice it is your responsibility, not that of your culture as a whole.
As for Byebyesanity and the rest, no response is necessary to insane rantings. When you have a calm rational thought to answer I will do so. Until then take your medication and calm down.
Re 19:
“Don’t try to sound like an intellectual…”
No fear, proud fool. Where I was raised commonsense was much more important than abstract intellectual foolishness. Apart from that I’ve read and experienced enough to know that most intellectuals are wrong most of the time, once historical perspective is in place.
But don’t you try to tell me how to interpret what I do read, and how I think. The value of classical literature is both in its’ timelessness and of its’ susceptibility to interpetation. Rousseau, while he wrote about human rights, kept a mistress he treated abominably, and had children by her whom he treated worse. It doesn’t matter. The text does.
And I’ll repeat as often as it takes for you folks to get it. I have never and never will support discrimination against homosexuality by the government in any basic human right. In conducting their lives gay people in no way should be interfered with by the state.
I can’t refuse to rent one of my houses to someone on account of sexual orientation and shouldn’t be allowed to. I can’t refuse to hire or choose to fire someone on that basis and shouldn’t be allowed to do so. Gays have the right to marry just like I do, just not someone of the same sex.
@30
The 15 states with the highest divorce rates in 2005, all 15 voted for Bush in 2004. All of them.
well, i can guarantee you that all of hollywood voted for kerry, and what do you think their divorce rate was?
sorry
oh, and i was just thinking, some of you might not realize all the divorces in hollywood, see, hollywood is mostly jewish, and jews get a free ride in the msm, so the msm dosent play up their divorces. but when like the only christian producer, mel gibson, gets divorced, every soon to be bankrupt newspaper, and retarted , entertainment tonite news show lets you know about it.
The moral majority is neither!
And woman of lies sucks big JEW DICKS! Don’t you? Come on WOMAN OF LIES you’re always attacking Jews, I believe you secretly suck Jewish dick and like it.
byebye, i have to admit, you’re the dimmest bulb here,but you’re funny.