When Gov. Christine Gregoire signs same-sex marriage into law the week after next, Washington state will be catching up to that uber-liberal state known as Iowa.
So when they heard the news, the Des Moines chapter of Drinking Liberally couldn’t resist teasing us a bit at the same time they sent a congratulatory message:
Can’t help but noting that DL Des Moines has a lot more women than Seattle’s version. So they’re ahead of us on that equality score, too.
Hey, I think we may have hit on a way to bring money into the local economy. We won’t have to offer big subsidies and low wages to established manufacturers, like Texas and South Carolina do. We don’t have to do away with worker’s rights to unionize. Heck, we don’t have to raise or lower our taxes at all.
All we have to do is have the state legislature approve same-sex marriage, and then have the evangelicals file an initiative to repeal it.
The Seattle Times was reporting this morning that such a battle at the polls will bring in a ton ouf out-of-state money. That money will be spent on printing campaign brochures, hiring initiative signature-gatherers, TV advertising, etc. The money being spent will draw in the national news media, who will spend lots of money at hotels and restaurants so they can do “live” stand-ups in front of some landmark or another to show that they are really in Seattle.
The trick is, that neither side should work for free in this battle. Don’t volunteer. Insist that if they want you to do anything, they have to pay for your time and effort.
By the time it’s over, we might be able to pay off the football stadium bill early from the additional hotel and rental-car taxes.
Then in the end, vote any way we want to vote, disregarding completly all the national hype and money spent. After all, it’s our state, not theirs. If out-of-state interests want to waste their money here, that’s their decision.