I hate to say it, but I agree with Bruce Ramsey and Rev. Joe Fuiten. Sorta.
In May, the Rev. Joe Fuiten of Cedar Park Church, Bothell, appealed to his fellow conservative Christians not to challenge the state’s new domestic-partnership law for same-sex couples.
Yes, they could collect signatures and put the law on the ballot and hope to overturn it. That is the right of referendum. But the polls, he said, “show us behind.” Fuiten warned: “If we make a referendum effort and fail, the other side will conclude the public is with them.”
Yes, they will — and the fight will be over.
Absolutely.
The bird-in-the-hand side of me would have preferred R-71 hadn’t qualified for the ballot (and in fact, I’m not entirely convinced it legitimately did), but I nonetheless believe that it stands a strong chance of passing. And if it does, it will rightly be perceived as a referendum on full-blown same-sex marriage itself.
How could it not? The anti-gay-rights forces will use the slippery slope argument as they always do, when they’re not outright misrepresenting the measure as doing more than it really does. And by branding the bill as the “Everything But Marriage Act,” the pro-gay-right side has virtually assured that the measure will be conflated with same-sex marriage in the minds of many voters… “don’t think of an elephant,” and all that.
So while R-71 really doesn’t give same-sex couples the same rights the rest of us enjoy, its passage at the polls would likely give legislators the backbone they need to move faster toward that final step. And as a connoisseur of irony, that’s an outcome I sure would enjoy.
I suppose you will finally come out of the closet Goldy if the Referendum fails??
At long last Goldy…you will be free and have a public vote to make you feel good about.
How liberating it will be for you.
Perhaps you will even become more friendly and less vulgar??
I’m just askin’
Have to disagree here — this is not about gay marriage.
The anti 71 crowd will try to make it about gay marriage and the pro 71 campaign will have to strike back and inform the state’s voters that it is merely about domestic partnerships for gays and lesbians AND heterosexual senior citizens. I expect the pro 71 ads will feature a lot of little old ladies talking about how they would lose their benefits and how their straight relationships will suffer if it is not approved.
Do not take a win for Referendum 71 as a statewide endorsement for gay marriage (which I am strongly in favor of).
We will get there someday but we are not there yet and I believe that such an effort would fail today.
One major problem I have with Bruce Ramsey’s editorial is this paragraph:
But note this: In California, 52 percent voted against same-sex marriage. Eight years earlier, 61 percent had voted against it. Opponents are losing 1 percent of the electorate per year.
I have also heard this argument from gay activists pushing for a re-vote of Prop 8 on next year’s California ballot: that people’s attitudes are changing rapidly and as proof are these two votes, eight years a part.
That is a false comparison. You cannot compare the 2008 vote for Proposition 8 with the 2000 vote for Proposition 22.
I lived in Sacramento in 2000 and fought against Prop 22. Prop 22 was held during a presidential primary election. An election where the Democratic base did not turn out since the contest was mostly decided (Gore Vs Bradley), while the Republican base turned out in droves since the contest was still very much in play (Bush Vs McCain).
Proposition 8 was held during a general election where the Democratic base was fired up and the Republican base was depressed.
Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble but I do not believe all that much has changed since 2000. And if it has, you cannot make the case with these two “apples and oranges” votes.
Gay people should incorporate. They’d have more civil rights and there’d be no limitation on how much they could contribute to political candidates.
Progressives should become a Delaware corporation and do the same.
With conservatives, you have to use political jiu-jitsu, or, as Troll would have it, jew-jitsu.
I love it when the righties complain about government and what it costs, then through their own actions, increase those costs.
Well, since they fought to put R-71 on the ballot, the state is required to print the text of the bill and mail it to every household in the state. The bill runs 114 pages, the elections department managed to shrink it down to 37 pages. Printing and postage will cost the taxpayers another $750,000.
http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcp.....2239.story
So what you are saying is that you are ok with clergy promoting political agendas in church when they line up with the agenda of the left.
What a douchebag.
Okay headless, tell us where you stole that from.
It’s the first funny thing you’ve said, so it has to be stolen.
I’d prefer to just let heterosexuals keep killing themselves, and raping themselves. They will fall like the Roman Empire.
R71 represents just revenge.
Those who know SJ, know I firmly oppose gay “marriage” but support the right of anyone to freely associate. This initiative is damning proof that the reprican right has dropped off the deep end.
They should read the Constitution … the right of free association explicitly implies the right of any pair of folks to … well be a pair. What that pair does in their bedrooms is none of my or anyone else’s business.
What will these abusers of religiohn come mup with next? maybe they would like to repeal gene3tics so evolution would be wrong? Or maybe pass a law banning illegal immigrants from bringing their hurt bhodies into our red white and blue hospitals?
Heil Beck!!!!
Mr. Jew, Why don’t you go back to the Dori Monson Show to espouse your religious conservative yet ambiguous views on gay marriage. Maybe this time he wouldn’t pull down your pants and spank you like he did, since he presumably would agree with you. Please don’t let him get away with calling you a liberal this time. Let us progressives speak for ourselves. You gave us all a bad name on Monday sznd you ain’t even one of us.
Listen to Dori whup Mr. Jew’s ass: <a
@10 Burlap dude ….
For what it it might be worth dimwit, a number of folks called me with a rather different POV.
Listen again … seems to me that Dori dropped the ball with his suggestion that carrying a gun was a great defense in a quick draw contest.His desperate effort to attck the UW fell pretty flat.
He got mad, I won.
@10 Burlap
What is ambiguous or conservative about my POV?
Most or all of Europe has exactly the law I believe in.
Another way of saying this is that the issue of marriage ahs nothing to do with the rights of two people to live together .. wahtever they do together.
@6 bo:
No, that isn’t even remotely close to what he was saying. He agreed with this assessment:
I am not forcing others to accept it. But I just can’t understand why other can’t accept this as a common thing. “Our heart is full of love as you straight people do. why not?” said by my bisexual friend at –Bimingle.com–. well, it is a popuar issure for us to disscussed and i can also calm down to hear any opinion.
I am not forcing others to accept it. But I just can’t understand why other can’t accept this as a common thing. “Our heart is full of love as you straight people do. why not?” said by my bisexual friend at –Bimingle com–. well, it is a popuar issure for us to disscussed and i can also calm down to hear any opinion.