Slashdot Mirror
Legal War For WA State Sunshine Law
joeszilagyi writes "In a major battle in Washington State, anti-gay rights groups created and got R-71 on the 2009 election ballot. This is a public initiative to put same-sex civil unions up for public vote. The real legal war then erupted: activists created WhoSigned.org to take advantage of WA state's Public Records Act, and put the names of all people who publicly endorsed R-71 on a public, SEO-optimized website. Lawsuits quickly followed, and today it reached the United States Supreme Court, in a matter of months. The records appear to have always been public, but have only been available in digital form since 2006. An assault on civil rights, an assault on marriage, or an assault on sunshine laws and freedom of information?"
The discussion is over the legal recognition of said marriage.
Actually, this discussion is over a website listing in a searchable way those who signed a petition to put gay-civil-unions on a ballot.
My sister married a gal from a wealthy family. They've spent over $20,000 on legal documents, trusts and related nonsense in order to ensure they have *some* of the rights entitled to heterosexual couples. And that's just for things that matter to courts - they can't change laws which grant rights only straight family members (visitation, child privileges, etc.)
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
http://blog.mattalgren.com/2009/09/hospital-forces-lesbian-to-die-alone/ "...made the decision not to allow Janice Langbehn, Lisa Pond’s partner, to have standard family access to information, even after receiving durable Power of Attorney and a Living Will naming Janice as legal guardian with authority to make end-of-life decisions."
The important thing to know about the situation in Washington is that no one is actually looking to change that. R-71 is not in any way shape or form about gay marriage. It's about domestic partnerships. In May of 2009, Washington governor Christine Gregoire signed into law Senate Bill 5688, the "everything but marriage" bill, which makes it so that within the state of Washington, domestic partnerships will have the exact same legal rights and responsibilities as married couples. Hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights, power of attorney rights, the right to adopt and raise children... All the things that two consenting adults who love each other and are genuinely committed to each other oought to have. This bill did not in any way shape or form suggest that domestic partnerships should be recognized as marriages, though. (See this article and the actual text of the bill).
And before someone tries to argue with me about the right to adopt... I'd like to point out that the reality of the situation is that there's tons of kids out there growing up in foster care, and that growing up in a home with 3-4 other children you aren't related to, some of whom were taken from their parents because the parents were neglectful or abusive, is known to frequently be a very traumatic experience. Whereas being raised by a gay couple would, at most, subject you to some teasing from other children at school.
R-71 is an attempt to overturn SB 5688. Plain and simple. It has nothing whatsoever to do with gay marriage. It is not in any way shape or form related to any religious belief. Washington State has never contemplated the issue of gay marriage. I've seen plenty of conservative literature claiming that gays "already have all the same rights" so that the "attack on traditional marriage" has to be about something other than basic human rights.
Well, at least in Washington, it very definitely isn't. (Oregon has actually had similar legislation in place for a few years now.) Gays are in no way shape or form interested in being allowed to legally use the word "marriage" to refer to our relationships here. We're only interested in having all the equivalent secular, legal rights. And R-71 is a vote about whether or not we should have those rights. But of course... There's a highly deceptive campaign going on with regards to it... And many of the people going in to vote on it may in fact have been led to falsely believe that they're voting on something related to gay marriage.