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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?"
is passed in every legislative session.
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Since you asked.
put the names of all people who publicly endorsed R-71 on a public, SEO-optimized website.
So you're telling me that you can sue someone for publicly telling everyone (via a website) something you publicly told everyone?
Look, mate, when you sign a petition, what you're doing is saying to anyone who cares to listen in the world that you endorse the views of the petition. If you aren't willing to attach your name to what the petition says, don't sign it.
I am officially gone from
that their signature remained secret, however no one should have to put up with an organized intimidation process which is the new method of choice. Seeing the pubic exercise their opinion has so offended certain elements out there. As such these same elements intend to use intimidation while expertly avoiding stepping over the line or just not getting caught to get any big names on their to back down or pay up.
In other words, the names should be protected based on what we know these elements will do with them. We cannot have the democratic process circumvented by threats and intimidation. I am all for treating these signatures like votes, off the public record. keep them private. If only to stop the new tactics.
This is similar to why Unions want Card Check, to intimidate their way into power. Freedom of expression is freedom from fear
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Honestly, I don't have a problem with churches not allowing same-sex marriages. However, the state should have no such rule. It's ridiculous. There is no direct or indirect effect on the state by allowing same-sex couples to marry. I don't see how they could ever win in a court of law.
It just shows you how biased judges are. If they were unbiased, the same sex marriage ban wouldn't last 5 minutes.
-SaNo
It's all about gay marriage. Neither group involved cares about any of the rest of that stuff.
Personally, I don't get it; so long as you don't make me marry a person of the same gender against my will, why do I care what you do? Don't pretend there aren't same-sex families already; according to one of the links, 18% of same-sex couples in Washington state are raising a child under 18.
I do have a tiny little bit of sympathy for the signers of the petition; I don't think people really understand the legal details behind the signing of a petition, and many of them many have assumed that it was as anonymous and protected as voting.
One shouldn't take a stand that involves limiting someone else's rights but only be willing to do it anonymously. That's just chicken shit.
And if you just shrugged and signed because your neighbor, coworker or fellow church goer asked you too without actually believing it, that's chicken shit too.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
If people are shamed by having signed the petition then they shouldn't have signed it. The people who are shamed aren't listening to their little voice.
If they are not ashamed to have signed it then what's the problem?
I don't know about you, the only petition I've signed as an adult was for a local politician to get on the ballot. Go ahead, put my name on the front page of the newspaper - all I did was agree that this nice guy on my front porch should get his name on the ballot if he wants. I guess it implies I support him, but really, I don't even know what he thinks, just that he seems OK enough to be on the ballot.
All these people did, when you get down to it, was agree that the question of gay marriage should be on the ballot. Same thing.
There's the implication that you're in favor of the measure passing, of course - but you shouldn't put your name on a piece of paper if you don't understand what could happen with that list of names.
I have no sympathy for any of the signers.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Cannot have such a rule. The anti-gay(-marriage) people will be quick to tell you the Constitution does not forbid discrimination based on sexual preference. Indeed, you won't find the words "sexual preference" or "sexuality" anywhere in the document. But pretending that you can in any way separate sexual preference from gender, against which discrimination is expressly forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment, is nothing more than parlor-trick hand-waiving by a homophobic community intent on forcing Biblical morality on an entire nation.
If two people each have the right to marry, they have the right to marry each other. No, that does not somehow open the door to marriages with goats like some people (including, sadly, some in this very discussion) would like you to believe. Does this somehow create a strain on government programs that pay you for being married? Good. Get rid of them. It's ridiculous to incentivize marriage, for straight or gay people.
I'm sorry if this doesn't fit with some peoples' narrow-minded world view, but I'm tired of gay bashing being the last acceptable form of discrimination in the US. End rant.
(And sorry to the grandparent; most of this rant was not intended for you, merely used as a jumping-off point.)
So... my only real religious belief is in the Streisand effect, so someone please provide a torrent and a wikileaks link to the list of names.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Note, that some people on the list did not sign the petition, if you know what I mean. Someone could have sat down with the parish directory, or my kids elementary school family book, or my employers phone directory, or my ham radio club mailing list, etc, and "helpfully" signed me up, to "save me the time of signing myself up". I think that is the real reason they are fighting the publicity, heck, I'd file suit if I learned someone put my name on that list of ignorant hillbillys, as that would obviously defame my reputation...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
that their signature remained secret, however no one should have to put up with an organized intimidation process which is the new method of choice
There is nothing "new" about it: so-called "Christians" and "conservatives"--probably many of the same kind of people who have signed this petition--have been using organized intimidation of minorities for two centuries. And they haven't stopped at intimidation: they have killed, injured, and discriminated.
Seeing the pubic exercise their opinion has so offended certain elements out there. As such these same elements intend to use intimidation while expertly avoiding stepping over the line or just not getting caught to get any big names on their to back down or pay up.
That is outrageous. For decades, gay rights activists have put their lives on the line to fight for safety, security, acceptance, and civil rights. Many have been murdered, more beaten up merely for speaking out, and many have lost their jobs. They have been vilified and persecuted. But finally, they have been making some headway.
Now a minority of bigots wants turn back the clock and they don't even have the decency and honesty to stand up and identify themselves when putting a referendum on the ballot?
This is similar to why Unions want Card Check, to intimidate their way into power. Freedom of expression is freedom from fear
This has nothing to do with "freedom of expression". These people can spew their bigotry in complete anonymity if they like; our laws and our Constitution guarantee that.
But once they want to put a referendum before the voters, they do not have a right to do so anonymously. The public has a right to know where these kinds of referenda come from.
The people putting this referendum on the ballot are not "the public", they are a bigoted minority. And their attempts to shield their names is like the robes of the Ku Klux Klan. Any legal issues aside, it is despicable, and it is despicable that you would defend them.
How about if you're a normal liberal who does believe in personal responsibility, believes that the scientists are right and that not only are there gay human beings but that many other species have an analog, that this is a result of genetic makeup and prenatal environment, and that gay people can no more help being attracted to the same sex than I, for instance, am attracted to the opposite one? How about if you're a Liberal who believes you right wingers are a collection of mindless buffoons endlessly repeating what your shock radio cheerleaders tell you, and that it's us Liberals who are responsible for almost all human progress, while your lot, from Southern Baptists to the Taliban, want to drag us back screaming and kicking into the Dark Ages?
Well, then we might think you're just another racist/homophobe spouting a load of offensive bullshit. And your point is?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
What a load of utter bullshit. I'm sorry but rarely have I ever heard such a fountain of total nonsense spew forth, here or elsewhere on the internet (with the possible exception of /b/).
False equivalence. One is a conscious, sentient adult, the other is an animal. Or an inanimate object. You're an idiot.
So if skin colour was a choice you'd be happy to discriminate? Gotcha. You're a hateful, dumb, bigot.
Totally irrelevant. If it's a choice it's their choice, not yours, and doesn't affect you in any way.
Nobody's asking for special treatment, they're asking for equal treatment, and you're clutching at straws to try and deny it.
Where to begin?
Liberal used as an invective (sure sign of an underdeveloped brain), non-sequiturs galore and yet more crap.
Why is sexual preference linked to responsibility? What is irresponsible about homosexuality? And I'm not inviting you to spew more stereotypical nonsense about promiscuity here, what is irresponsible about the fact of homosexuality itself?
Basically, you're wrong and pretty dumb. Or a troll, I'm not sure which.
Gay rights activists go too far. It's one thing to demand a right to do what seams right to you, its another thing to lash out against those who express any kind of disapproval. .
Let's take away your ability to marry, and then see if you might be so inclined to lash out in any way. Perhaps when your loved one is dying in the hospital, and you are not allowed to go see her. Would you sit quietly by? I doubt it.
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And following that logic inter-racial marriage wasn't discrimination either. Blacks weren't allowed to marry outside their race, but then nether were whites.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
We're not talking about politicians here, we're talking about private citizens, so yes, it's obvious you didn't RTFA.
Marriage is between a man and woman.... anything else can NEVER be called marriage... Period...
Why can't we call it marriage? I do and 48% of Californians agree with me. Ask us again in 2010 and it will be 49%. Ask us in 2012 and it will be 50.1%. Inevitably, Gay Marriage will be recognized as a right and our grandchildren will be shaking their heads that this was really ever a debate.
If they were the same it would be called 'voting'. It is not. It is a public record and should be treated as such. If people do not have the strength of their convictions then they shouldn't sign it. That is the point of peer pressure. It molds society into what is acceptable and what is not.
If someone steps over the line and takes illegal retribution against someone who signed a petition after that info was made public then they would be in the wrong and handled under the law. If someone signs onto a discriminatory petition and is treated badly (but legally) as a result, once it becomes known, then they've reaped what they've sewn.
Because voting has safeguards that were meant to prevent dead people from voting, live people from voting twice, and imaginary people from even showing up at the polling place. Notwithstanding the matter of the effectiveness of those safeguards or the manner in which our less than upright politicians have attempted to circumvent them, petitions have none of these.
Additionally, even if these were 'codified' into the manner in which petitions were made, the entire point of a petition is "We proudly support this idea and are the ones that put you in office, do it!" That implies you are willing to take a stand on it.
PS. You don't have to go through the 'petition' stage to get to the 'voting' stage. It's just as possible for you to walk into your congressman's office and have a nice private chat with him.