joemygod...food for thought
 

Libertarian Candidate Slams Obama

"Instead of insisting on equality as a U.S. Constitutional guarantee, the President has thrown this question back to the states. When the smoke clears, Gay Americans will realize the President’s words have gained them nothing today, and that millions of Americans in most states will continue to be denied true marriage equality . I guess the President is still more worried about losing Ohio, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia than he is in doing the right thing. What is the President saying — that he would eat a piece of cake at a gay wedding if the state the happy couple lives in allows it ?. Where is the leadership? While I commend him for supporting the concept of gay marriage equality, I am profoundly disappointed in the President." - Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson

Do I dare read the comments? :/
 

Petition the DNC
 

The President cannot do a damn thing about DOMA except use his 'bully pulpit'. Obama is good on LGBTQ issues. He has actually done more than any other President to address our issues. I don't expect him to be perfect....hell Barney Frank is not perfect after all he was closeted for YEARS.

I don't get what Johnson is bitching about. It is leadership to be vocal about his views and how they have changed over the years........

(and oh please don't get me started on Gary Johnson former Gov of New Mexico)

It actually gives me hope that he just might stop worrying about being 'the angry black man' and do the right thing during his second and last term as President.

Breakthrough Conversation - Language Check in
 

RI governor signs order to recognize same-sex marriages performed out of state
 

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island’s governor on Monday declared that the state will recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, giving gay couples the same rights as heterosexual ones when it comes to health insurance and a slew of other benefits.

The order signed by Gov. Lincoln Chafee in a Statehouse ceremony directs state agencies to recognize marriages performed out of state as legal and treat same-sex married couples the same as heterosexual ones.

Some gay couples married outside Rhode Island — where civil unions are allowed, but gay marriage is illegal — have not been afforded certain rights because state law is not clear on the subject.

In 2007, then-Attorney General Patrick Lynch issued an opinion in favor of recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages, but it was nonbinding. Chafee said his signing of the executive order is “following through” on that opinion.

The executive order is expected to have many real-world implications. Same-sex spouses of state employees and anyone covered by an insurance company regulated in Rhode Island will be entitled to health and life insurance benefits, gay rights advocates say.

Both partners in a same-sex couple will be able to list their names as parents on a child’s birth certificate, and same-sex couples will be entitled to sales tax exemptions on the transfer of property including vehicles.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...FPU_story.html

prop 8 Blog...
 

Small but significant: Obama becomes first president to use “marriage equality” in public
By Jacob Combs

Speaking earlier this week at a New York fundraiser hosted by Ricky Martin at the Rubin Museum of Art, President Obama became the first sitting president to use the term “marriage equality” in a public speech. Referring to the pride he feels for passing the Lilly Ledbetter Act (which gives women greater opportunities to seek legal action for equal pay), Obama spoke about his belief that all citizens in the United States should be treated equally:

The first bill I signed, the Lilly Ledbetter Act — a simple proposition — equal pay for equal work. I don’t want my daughters treated differently than my sons. That’s the reason why we’re fighting for comprehensive immigration reform — because I believe that a child who’s here, raised with our kids, playing with our kids, has as much talent as our kids, the notion that somehow they would not have the capacity, the ability to proclaim themselves Americans and to fulfill their American Dream — that’s not who we are and that’s not what we’re about.

The announcement I made last week about my views on marriage equality — same principle. The basic idea — I want everybody treated fairly in this country. We have never gone wrong when we expanded rights and responsibilities to everybody. That doesn’t weaken families; that strengthens families. It’s the right thing to do.

This may seem like a small, semantic technicality, but it’s actually a highly significant moment. The truth is that when it comes to advocating for marriage rights for gay and lesbian individuals, language matters. Polls conducted in states across the country find that respondents are far more likely to respond that they support such rights when they are presented as “marriage equality” as opposed to “gay marriage.” Having to put any adjective in front of the word marriage, whether it be “gay” or “same-sex,” inherently brands the concept as something other than ‘just’ marriage, or some specific subset of marriage.

In truth, though, gays and lesbians aren’t trying to get “gay married.” We’re trying to get married the same way that heterosexual couples are allowed to. In a much deeper sense, using the term “marriage equality” as opposed to “gay marriage” gets to the root of the marriage debate: what we are seeking is not a new right and not a special right, but rather equal access to the already existent and constitutionality fundamental right to marry that all individuals should enjoy.

So when President Obama uses the term “marriage equality,” it may not make headlines. But it’s a big moment that shows just how far we’ve come, and what an important ally we now have on our side

Two weeks ago my wife and I received a letter from ADP (who administrates our paychecks). It said that because we had a recognized dependent, which is a non-spouse or dependent child who is covered by insurance benefits, AND the federal government does not recognize domestic partnerships and/or civil unions, we will be required to pay income taxes on those benefits in the amount of $500 taken out twice a year. Yesterday I checked the bank deposits. It was $250 short.

I think I am preaching to the choir here but........there isn't even anyone that I can complain to about this. What are we supposed to do? Throw our dildos in Boston harbor? Whoo hoo that'll show 'em.

Bastards


Taxation of Domestic Partner Benefits

New from Illinois--prop 8 blog
 

Marriage equality lawsuit filed in Illinois
By Jacob Combs

Today, Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois will each file a lawsuit contending that the state’s refusal to grant marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples violates the equal protection and due process rights of those couples under the state’s constitution. Activists in the state, who successfully shepherded a civil unions bill into law last year, had been pursuing a legislative strategy, but a House bill that was introduced earlier this year was removed from consideration in the middle of the session. While there are no plans to abandon their legislative push, marriage equality advocates in the state believe that a more feasible path to marriage rights in the state might be through the judicial system.

“We feel like we’re at a tipping point,” said Camilla Taylor, a Lambda Legal attorney who headed up a similar case that led to the legalization of gay marriage in Iowa. “You reach a point where you can no longer tell these families that they should hold off. You lack the justification when we reach a national moment, when it’s clear that our time is now.” After President Barack Obama announced his support for marriage equality earlier this month, Illinis Gov. Pat Quinn announced his endorsement as well.

The two suits will be filed on behalf of 25couples from across Illinois, all of whom attempted to obtain a marriage license from the Cook County clerk’s office and were denied due to an Illinois law that states, “A marriage between 2 individuals of the same sex is contrary to the public policy of this State.” Intriguingly, the office of David Orr, the Cook County Clerk, released a statement today that read: “The time is long past due for the state of Illinois to allow county clerks to issue marriage license to couples who want to make their commitment. I hope these lawsuits are the last hurdle to achieving equal marriage rights for all.”

The two Illinois lawsuits resemble In re Marriage Cases, the series of consolidated lawsuits that were filed in California after the state enacted a domestic partnership law. In that case’s landmark ruling, the California Supreme Court held that marriage is a fundamental right under the state constitution and that withholding only the title of ‘marriage’ from gay couples while providing them all of the rights and privileges accorded to married couples violated their equal protection rights. That ruling would lead to the passage of Proposition 8, followed by the Prop 8 trial.

It is unclear at this point whether or not Gov. Quinn will defend Illinois’s mini-DOMA in court. As with the other marriage equality cases being argued throughout the country, Prop8TrialTracker.com will have more news and analysis of the new Illinois lawsuits as they progress through the courts.

..Court: Heart of gay marriage law unconstitutional
By DENISE LAVOIE | Associated Press – 11 mins ago....BOSTON (AP)

— A federal appeals court Thursday declared that the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutionally denies federal benefits to married gay couples, a groundbreaking ruling all but certain to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In its unanimous decision, the three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said the 1996 law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman deprives gay couples of the rights and privileges granted to heterosexual couples.

The court didn't rule on the law's more politically combustible provision, which said states without same-sex marriage cannot be forced to recognize gay unions performed in states where it's legal. It also wasn't asked to address whether gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.

The law was passed at a time when it appeared Hawaii would legalize gay marriage. Since then, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved it, led by Massachusetts in 2004.

The court, the first federal appeals panel to deem the benefits section of the law unconstitutional, agreed with a lower level judge who ruled in 2010 that the law interferes with the right of a state to define marriage and denies married gay couples federal benefits given to heterosexual married couples, including the ability to file joint tax returns.

The 1st Circuit said its ruling wouldn't be enforced until the U.S. Supreme Court decides the case, meaning that same-sex married couples will not be eligible to receive the economic benefits denied by DOMA until the high court rules.

That's because the ruling only applies to states within the circuit, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire and Puerto Rico. Only the Supreme Court has the final say in deciding whether a law passed by Congress is unconstitutional.

Although most Americans live in states where the law still is that marriage can only be the union of a man and a woman, the power to define marriage had always been left to the individual states before Congress passed DOMA, the appeals court said in its ruling.

"One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage," Judge Michael Boudin wrote for the court. "Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest."

During arguments before the court last month, a lawyer for gay married couples said the law amounts to "across-the-board disrespect." The couples argued that the power to define and regulate marriage had been left to the states for more than 200 years before Congress passed DOMA.

An attorney defending the law argued that Congress had a rational basis for passing it in 1996, when opponents worried that states would be forced to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere. The group said Congress wanted to preserve a traditional and uniform definition of marriage and has the power to define terms used to federal statutes to distribute federal benefits.

Since DOMA was passed in 1996, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved it, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland, Washington state and the District of Columbia. Maryland and Washington's laws are not yet in effect and may be subject to referendums.

Last year, President Barack Obama announced the U.S. Department of Justice would no longer defend the constitutionality of the law. After that, House Speaker John Boehner convened the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to defend it. The legal group argued the case before the appeals court.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the Boston-based legal group that brought one of the lawsuits on behalf of gay married couples, said the law takes one group of legally married people and treats them as "a different class" by making them ineligible for benefits given to other married couples.

"We've been working on this issue for so many years, and for the court to acknowledge that yes, same-sex couples are legally married, just as any other couple, is fantastic and extraordinary," said Lee Swislow, GLAD's executive director.

Two of the three judges who decided the case Thursday were Republican appointees, while the other was a Democratic appointee. Boudin was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, while Judge Juan Torruella was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. Chief Judge Sandra Lynch is an appointee of President Bill Clinton

Prop 8 Blog
 

Illinois Attorney General announces support for marriage equality lawsuits
By Jacob Combs

The upcoming court battle in Illinois over the constitutionality of civil unions and the state’s prohibition on marriage equality looks like it promises to be an intriguing and unusual one. Earlier this week, Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Illinois announced that they were simultaneously filing two lawsuits, Darby v. Orr and Lazaro v. Orr, arguing that the civil unions the state began offering to gay and lesbian couples last year infringe upon those couples’ equal protection rights under the Illinois Constitution.

David Orr, who is the official government defendant in both lawsuits by virtue of his position as Cook County Clerk, is himself a supporter of marriage equality: in a statement released by his office last week, Orr wrote of his “hope [that] these lawsuits are the last hurdle to achieving equal marriage rights for all.” Because of Orr’s position, it seems unlikely that he will elect to put forward any strong defense of the status quo once the cases make their way to court.

In another twist, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced over the weekend her plans to intervene in the two marriage cases–on the side of the plaintiffs. Usually, state Attorneys General intervene in court cases when state laws are challenged in order to support those statutes, or, as in the case of Proposition 8 and California Attorney General Kamala Harris (like her predecessor Jerry Brown), they choose to opt out of such lawsuits if they do not support the law in question. Madigan, however, believes that Illinois’s civil unions law does not in fact adequately protect equal protection rights, and plans to intervene on behalf of Lambda Legal and the ACLU in both cases.

With both Orr and Madigan expressing support for the lawsuits, it’s an open question now as to who will actually defend the constitutionality of the civil unions law in court. David Orr would normally be represented in court by Anita Alvarez, the state attorney for Cook County, but it is unclear if the Democratic attorney will opt to defend the law, especially after Madigan’s announcement.

In California, when both the Governor and Attorney General declined to support Proposition 8 in court, the constitutional amendment’s official backers intervened in court to defend it. In Illinois, however, there are no ballot proponents to stand up for the civil unions law (since it was enacted legislatively and not by a popular vote), and Democrats control both chambers of the legislature. It will be interesting to see who steps forward to defend the law, and if the courts decide to allow them to do so

From the Prop 8 Blog for those of us link challanged
 

BREAKING: 9th Circuit DENIES request to re-hear Prop 8 case
By Scottie Thomaston

The judges sitting in the Ninth Circuit have issued a new order in the Perry v. Brown case today. The full panel of Ninth Circuit judges have decided that en banc rehearing of the three-judge panel’s decision will not be granted. This comes after a months-long wait: the proponents of Proposition 8 announced their intention to seek en banc review of the Ninth Circuit’s three-judge panel decision on February 21 of this year. As we noted yesterday, the decision to deny rehearing of the case with a new, randomly-selected eleven judge panel means that Judge Reinhardt’s opinion, which was joined by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins and garnered a dissent by Judge N. Randy Smith, either way, will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court where the proponents will now likely file a petition for certiorari, asking them to review and possibly overturn Judge Reinhardt’s opinion for the Ninth Circuit’s panel of three judges.

An en banc rehearing at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is much different from other circuits. Generally, en banc means that the entire court will rehear the case, with all judges in the circuit participating. But the Ninth Circuit has an inordinately large number of judges, so they have a procedure wherein they have an ‘en banc panel’ consisting of eleven judges: ten randomly-chosen judges plus the Chief Judge (at the Ninth Circuit that is Alex Kozinski) presiding. If rehearing had been granted, the randomly selected panel could have heard arguments and issued new briefing in the case or they could have decided to forgo that and issue a new decision without it.

Now that en banc rehearing was denied, the proponents have 90 days to file a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, seeking review of the decision striking down Proposition 8. It’s likely that Justices at the Supreme Court would have their conference to take up the petition and decide whether to grant review or not sometime after their summer break in October. Oral argument would follow a few months later, and then a final decision would be issued by June or July 2013.

Judge O’Scannlain has filed a dissent from the denial of en banc rehearing joined by Judges Bybee and Bea, and in it he discusses his belief that Judge Smith’s dissent was correct. He says that “we have now declared that animus must have been the only conceivable motivation for a sovereign State to have remained committed to a definition of marriage that has existed for millennia.”

No one is certain if the Supreme Court would grant review of the case as it currently stands. Judge Reinhardt’s opinion for the three-judge Ninth Circuit panel is very narrow and the holding is specific to California’s unique legal circumstances. A denial of rehearing in this case leaves the decision California-specific and there may not be four Justices – the number needed to grant certiorari – who want to visit an issue that’s so limited in scope. On the other hand, the panel’s decision did strike down an amendment to a constitution of an enormous state involving a contentious issue. And allowing gay couples to marry in California would nearly double the amount of people in the United States who live in an area that allows same-sex marriage.

This process has gone on for so long. The complaint was initially filed on May 22, 2009 and the trial began on January 11, 2010. Judge Walker didn’t issue a decision in the case until August 4, 2010. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling came much later, with the three-judge panel issuing its ruling on February 7 of this year. Now the Perry case is entering its final phase.

Now that the Ninth Circuit has denied en banc rehearing of the three-judge panel’s decision, the case will face its final test soon, at the Supreme Court, as the proponents are widely expected to seek review of the three-judge panel’s decision. If the proponents do file a petition for certiorari the Justices will look at the petition in a conference later this year where the final decision will be made: review the case or let the Ninth Circuit’s decision be the final word in this long journey to decide the fate of the odious Proposition 8. It promises to be an exciting year


UPDATE (Jacob): Some more details. The original three-judge panel voted 2-1, along the same lines as the decision, to deny en banc rehearing, with Judges Reinhardt and Hawkins voted to deny it and Judge Smith voting in favor of it.

As expected, Judge O’Scannlain (who has written in favor of en banc rehearing on LGBT cases before and has excoriated the Ninth Circuit for its rulings favorable to gays and lesbians), wrote a dissent, joined by Judges Bybee and Bea, explaining why he supported the rehearing. Here is his brief dissent, in full:

A few weeks ago, subsequent to oral argument in this case, the President of the United States ignited a media firestorm by announcing that he supports same- sex marriage as a policy matter. Drawing less attention, however, were his comments that the Constitution left this matter to the States and that “one of the things that [he]’d like to see is–that [the] conversation continue in a respectful way.”1

Today our court has silenced any such respectful conversation. Based on a two-judge majority’s gross misapplication of Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), we have now declared that animus must have been the only conceivable motivation for a sovereign State to have remained committed to a definition of marriage that has existed for millennia, Perry v. Brown, 671 F.3d 1052, 1082 (9th Cir. 2012). Even worse, we have overruled the will of seven million California Proposition 8 voters based on a reading of Romer that would be unrecognizable to the Justices who joined it, to those who dissented from it, and to the judges from sister circuits who have since interpreted it. We should not have so roundly trumped California’s democratic process without at least discussing this unparalleled decision as an en banc court.

For many of the same reasons discussed in Judge N.R. Smith’s excellent dissenting opinion in this momentous case, I respectfully dissent from the failure to grant the petition for rehearing en banc.

Judges Reinhardt and Hawkins also filed a response to Judge O’Scannlain’s dissent today, concurring in the denial of rehearing:

We are puzzled by our dissenting colleagues’ unusual reliance on the President’s views regarding the Constitution, especially as the President did not discuss the narrow issue that we decided in our opinion. We held only that under the particular circumstances relating to California’s Proposition 8, that measure was invalid. In line with the rules governing judicial resolution of constitutional issues, we did not resolve the fundamental question that both sides asked us to: whether the Constitution prohibits the states from banning same-sex marriage. That question may be decided in the near future, but if so, it should be in some other case, at some other time

From prop 8 blog
 

Questions and answers on next steps as the Prop 8 case heads towards Supreme Court
By Scottie Thomaston, Adam Bink, and Jacob Combs

Yesterday was the big news of the Ninth Circuit’s decision not to rehear the case with an 11-judge en banc panel. The staff here at Prop8TrialTracker.com have seen a steady stream of comments and questions about today’s decision and the future of the Perry v. Brown case challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8. Here we will try to answer some of these questions. Updates with new questions from the comments or elsewhere will be added at the bottom.

1. Is there still a stay? What’s the story with that?

Yes. Yesterday’s 9th Circuit order says: “The mandate is stayed for ninety days pending the filing of a petition for writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court. If such a petition is filed, the stay shall continue until final disposition by the Supreme Court.”

A petition for writ of certiorari means to request that the U.S. Supreme Court review the case. If the proponents of Proposition 8 (those who put it on the 2008 ballot and helped pass it, and now are defendants in the lawsuit) decide to seek review by the Supreme Court – and they have already indicated they will indeed file a petition for certiorari – the decision will remain stayed if the Supreme Court takes the case until a final decision by the Supreme Court, likely in the summer of 2013. If the Supreme Court does not take the case, the decision will become final and Prop 8 will end.

2. What will the proponents do next?

The proponents of Proposition 8 will file a petition for certiorari at the Supreme Court. They will argue that the Ninth Circuit wrongly decided the legal issues presented in the case and they will suggest the Supreme Court should reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision. It takes four votes out of the nine Justices to grant review of cases and set the case up for arguments before the Supreme Court.

3. Is super en banc at the 9th Circuit still possible?

“Super en banc” means review at the 9th Circuit by all the judges on the court, rather than a 3-judge panel or 11-judge panel. It’s theoretically possible under the current rule 35-3. However the wording of the rule seems to suggest that so-called “super en banc” is only possible after the en banc panel hearing with 11 randomly-selected judges, and that rehearing for an 11-judge panel was just denied by the Ninth Circuit judges. So it seems highly unlikely that this case is headed anywhere except straight to the Supreme Court.

4. When do Prop 8′s proponents have to appeal or go home by?


Proponents have 90 days to file for a writ of certiorari at the Supreme Court. After that, if there is no petition filed, the mandate will issue (meaning that the Ninth Circuit’s decision will come into effect, Prop 8 will end, and same-sex marriages will resume in California.)

5. If Prop 8′s proponents appeal, when will the Supreme Court decide whether or not to take the case?

The Supreme Court heads into summer break soon, and given the timeline for appeal, it is unlikely the Court will decide in conference whether or not to take the case until they return from their summer break around October 2012.

6. By when would the Supreme Court issue a decision if they took the case?

Oral arguments are usually heard within 4 months or so if certiorari is granted, and the Court almost always issues its decisions by July 4th. So a decision would be expected by July 2013.

7. What issues will the Supreme Court decide on appeal if they take the case?

It’s up to them. The Supreme Court has broad discretion to decide which questions it will take up in each case. In the petition for certiorari, there is a list of “questions presented” which are the legal issues the petitioners want the Supreme Court to take on. But just because proponents ask doesn’t mean the Supreme Court has to take those specific questions.

Having said that, it’s likely that the Supreme Court would decide whether or not proponents have ‘standing’ to appeal the case in federal court, and it’s of course likely that the Supreme Court will rule one way or the other on the constitutionality of Proposition 8. Beyond those key issues, Supreme Court review is typically limited to the issues raised in the court below. Since the opponents of Proposition 8 raised the issue of subjecting laws against gays and lesbians to a higher form of scrutiny and since they addressed the possibility of a broader ruling on marriage equality, the Supreme Court could decide to accept those questions if they are raised, or introduce the issue. It seems more likely that they would want to decide the narrow issue of Proposition 8′s constitutionality, but that’s just speculation until the Court has their conference and agrees on the questions it will hear.

8. Is it better or worse for the opponents of Proposition 8 if the Supreme Court does or does not review the case?

It depends on one’s goals and predictions. The Supreme Court is of course a mostly conservative court. On many issues, it is made up of four moderates and four conservatives with Justice Kennedy as the ‘swing vote’ on a few social issues. Justice Kennedy is, for the most part, fairly conservative. He did write the opinions in the two most recent pro-LGBT cases to come out of the Supreme Court: Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas, however. If the Supreme Court reviews the case, that presents the possibility that they might uphold Proposition 8. If they deny the petition for certiorari, the Ninth Circuit decision stands and California will have marriage equality as the law in the state.

If the Supreme Court reviews the case, though, there is a real potential of having at least five votes to uphold the Ninth Circuit decision striking down Proposition 8. Since Justice Kennedy has written pro-LGBT opinions, it is not outside the realm of possibility he would apply his own logic from those opinions (especially Romer, on which the Ninth Circuit’s opinion heavily relies) to this case and decide things in our favor. Even if we ended up with a narrow Supreme Court opinion striking down Proposition 8 in a way that only applies to California, the case could be used as precedent to build on in the future.

On the other hand, there are reasons to hope the Supreme Court does not take the case. Perhaps chief among them is, as Adam noted here back in February, there is a big chance that supporters of marriage equality could lose. No one knows where Anthony Kennedy, nor other Justices, stand on same-sex marriage, although the 9th Circuit decision is tailored in such a way to make it more likely to turn a favorable ruling. Why risk it, especially with another case in Nevada that may reach the Court after more states have legalized same-sex marriage, public opinion keeps moving and the composition of the Court grows perhaps more favorable? Take a strong ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional, legalize same-sex marriage in California, and on to the next fight. Second, for the sake of couples who have waited a long time to marry, waiting another year could lead to serious harm (such as, in the case of Ed and Derence, one’s unfortunate passing). So it depends on one’s goals and predictions regarding the future of same-sex marriage in California and the nation.

Prop 8 Blog...Washington State fight
 

Opponents of marriage equality in Washington state file signatures required for ballot referendum
By Jacob Combs

The Washington state law passed earlier this year to bring marriage equality to the state is officially on hold now that opponents of the measure have submitted a raft of signatures to the Secretary of State seeking to put the issue on the November ballot. The ballot measure, known as Referendum 74, would ask Washington voters to uphold or overturn the legislature’s law allowing same-sex couples to wed in the state while protecting the religious freedoms of places of worship who do not recognize marriage equality. The proponents of Referendum 74 told reporters that they had collected 241,000 signatures, about twice as many as the 120,577 required by law.

Before the ballot initiative becomes official, the Secretary of State will have to verify the accuracy of the signatures, but it is extremely likely the proponents will have required the requisite number even if a chunk of signatures are found to be invalid. According to the Secretary of State’s office, the referendum could be officially certified by the middle of next week.

It goes without saying that marriage equality’s past record at the ballot box looks unpromising–32 out of 32 states have voted against marriage rights in the past. In reliably blue Washington, though, opponents of marriage equality face a tougher road than they have in some other states. Washington is the only state where a popular vote has uphold expanded rights for LGBT citizens: in 2009, voters upheld a law passed by the legislature that extended domestic partnerships to gay and lesbian couples. According to Matt Barreto, a political science professor at the University of Washington who has conducted extensive polling on the issue, support for equal legal rights for same-sex couples has grown since 2009.

That means that marriage opponents must walk a fine line in the state as they try to avoid making it seem like they are against legal equality for gays and lesbians while striving to preserve the definition of marriage as a union of opposite-sex partners. Speaking to the New York Times, Joseph Backholm of the anti-marriage equality group Preserve Marriage Washington said that Washington voters this year will have a chance to make a decision on marriage only, and could repeal the new law without feeling like they’ve taken rights away from gay couples. In a way, the fact that Backholm has to frame the issue this way is in itself a victory for our side, since it shows that the island of exclusion he and his colleagues stand upon is being steadily eroded as public opinion changes. (Of course, this does mean that Backholm’s position is becoming increasingly tenuous and, in a sense, desperate, since it is essentially only a matter of semantics.)

The facts on the ground in Washington look good for our side: a recent independent poll found that 54 percent percent of Washingtonians approve of the legislature’s law, with only 33 percent opposed. Support among independents was also strong, with 52 percent in favor and 36 percent opposed. Obama carried Washington easily in 2008, and he enjoyed a 54 percent approval rating in the state just last week. In addition, marriage equality advocates have a big cash advantage so far: they’ve raised over $700,000, while opponents have so far raised only a little over $110,000.

Finally, another anti-marriage equality group in the state, the awkwardly named Marriage Equals One Man Plus One Woman, is seeking signatures for another ballot amendment that would institute a mini-DOMA in Washington limiting marriage to heterosexual couples only. That group must obtain 242,000 signatures by July 6, and has collected approximately 100,000, according to the Chicago Tribute. If both ballot measures qualify for the November election, it could create a bit of chaos for all sides, the effects of which are unclear, but which could bode well for marriage advocates if opponents are split between two measures.

When it comes to popular votes on marriage equality, it’s always wise to be cautious. We can be sure that our opponents will be out in droves between now and November, and its going to take both manpower and money for us to win. Still, in Washington state, we will be able to conduct perhaps the most aggressive campaign on the most positive ground that we’ve had so far. That in itself is enough of a reason for us to give it everything we’ve got.

This is sad, the cost of same sex marriage.