ARLINGTON, WA - May 5, 2009 - A coalition of faith based and conservative organizations and leaders filed a Referendum on May 4 to overturn Senate Bill 5688, a 110 page measure which includes the phrase “marriage shall apply equally to state registered domestic partnerships” 180 times.Referendum 71 will keep SB 5688 from going into effect and if the required signatures are gathered, will put the measure in front of Washington State voters in November. SB 5688 was packaged and presented to the legislature as a Domestic Partnerships expansion of benefits. In truth, it will demolish the state’s historical understanding and definition of marriage as that of uniting a man and a woman for life.
Washington State will immediately become subject to litigation by same-sex partners demanding that the courts overturn the Defense of Marriage Act and impose “same-sex marriage” (as happened recently in California prior to Proposition 8).
If ”same-sex marriage” becomes legal in Washington, every public school will be forced to teach that same-sex relationships and marriage are perfectly normal. This will greatly harm our schools and drive an irreconcilable wedge between the public school curriculum and the values and moral code of hundreds of thousands of parents. Parents with deeply held convictions on this matter will have no choice but to remove their children.
Gary Randall, president of Faith and Freedom Network, has been asked to help lead the coalition and be the primary spokesman. Larry Stickney, president of the Washington Values Alliance, will organize the signature gathering effort to place the referendum on the November ballot.
The following organizations and individuals are actively endorsing the campaign and/or serving on the Steering Committee:
Washington Eagle Forum – Cindy Honcoop
Pastor Ken Hutcherson, Antioch Bible Church
Washington Values Alliance – Larry Stickney
Faith and Freedom Network – Gary Randall
Christian Coalition – Rick Forcier
YWAM & US Renewal – Ron Boehme
Facts for Freedom – Jim Galbraith
Washington Opposed to Pro-Homosexual Policies, Pastor Gary and Annetta Small
Concerned Citizens of Pierce County - Patty Burgess
The Reagan Wing
Senator Dan Swecker
Senator Val Stevens
Representative Matt Shea
Representative Jim McCune
Dr. Bruce Craswell
Dr. Bryant Adams
Stephen Pidgeon, Esquire, Decalogos International
Pastor Rick Long, Atonement Free Lutheran Church
Pastors Roy & Valerie Hartwell, Rivers of Glory Church
The organizations listed represent over 100,000 Washingtonians and can mobilize hundreds of campaign volunteers. The campaign team’s newly formed PAC and website will be announced later this week.
Wow. Really makes you long for the good old days when the American Psychological Association defined homosexuality as a mental illness, a “neurosis” I think it was. I know I know, it was dumbed down version of “sin”, but we’re so far down the slippery slope now that even THEY can’t remember what was so-called “settled science” a mere couple of decades ago.
Like going from global warming…to climate change… to climate chaos… to ice age.
I suppose it will take a flood of homosexuals and pedophiles molesting the children in those “normal” relationships for their parents to wake up and realize how STUPID they’ve been. Pity the children.
Sign me up- Anything my husband and I can do, we are willing- Camano Island WA
I don’t think the author of this piece has actually read or understands the language in this bill. Pulling a partial quote like “marriage shall apply equally to state registered domestic partnerships” makes it sound like ESB 5688 does something to marriage, but it doesn’t. The implication is disingenuous in the extreme.
The truth is that this bill preserves the shameful second class status for same-sex couples and their families.
If you look at the complete language of any of the 180 instances of the above quote you’ll see what the bill is actually doing. For example:
“For the purposes of this code, with the exception of chapter 26.04 RCW, the terms spouse, marriage, marital, husband, wife, widow, widower, next of kin, and family shall be interpreted as applying equally to state registered domestic partnerships or individuals in state registered domestic partnerships as well as to marital relationships and married persons, and references to dissolution of marriage shall apply equally to state registered domestic partnerships that have been terminated, dissolved, or invalidated, to the extent that such interpretation does not conflict with federal law.”
All this bill does is remove some of the discrimination against same-sex couples and families by giving equal treatment to Domestic Partnerships.
This is especially vital for the 18% of same-sex couples in our state who, on average, are raising 2 children per household. It’s worth remembering that 8% of Washington’s adopted children live with a lesbian or gay parent and that, as of 2005, an estimated 7,249 of Washington’s children were living in households headed by same-sex couples.
According to a University of Washington Statewide Voter Survey conducted in October 2007 the majority of Washingtonians (59.4%) think that gay and lesbian couples should have exactly the same rights as straight couples. The vast majority of Washingtonians (73.5%) think that gay and lesbian couples should have some or all of the benefits and protections of marriage.
Why don’t you?
DOMA is established law and has survived a constitutional challenge. Same-sex couples still don’t have the marriage bill to fully protect and enfranchise their families.
Why lie and try to make a domestic partnership bill that addresses discrimination about marriage instead? Because it’s the only path for you to win, and the path is narrowing year after year.
I’ll work on gathering signatures
Dear “Gay Curmudgeon” (by definition, then, “bad-tempered, difficult, cantankerous homosexual”),
Contrary to your post, there is nothing disingenuous about the characterization of ESB 5688 at all. ESB 5688, itself, is disingenuous in the extreme. It establishes Homosexual Marriage in Washington State while attempting to avoid public awareness by linguistic deception. If you were to title it “Homosexual Marriage” the reference to the 180 times, in the bill itself, that it actually does that would not be necessary.
1. You say “this bill preserves the shameful second class status for same-sex couples and their families” but, in fact, the only effect on any families is to strengthen them by refusing the deconstruction of the legal status of marriage. ESB5688 is shameful, but, being a “professional skeptic” you would, of course, re-define the meaning of the word “shameful” to mean “something with attributes you personally dislike.” “Same Sex Couples” are, each, an assault on the respective families from which the two mutually-enabled victims are derived and the lives of any children improperly and non-consensually appropriated for use in the charade.
2. You say, “All this bill does is remove some of the discrimination against same-sex couples and families by giving equal treatment to Domestic Partnerships.” First, of course, it must be pointed out that there is no such thing as a “same-sex” family the way you attempt to use it, but with respect to “same-sex couples” you are quite right. It removes discrimination against something evil. This is true in the same sense that a law eliminating all definition of private property in Washington State Law would “remove some of the discrimination against thieves and embezzlers by giving equal treatment to all means of acquiring property.” The recognition of same-sex couples and/or Domestic Partnerships as legally equivalent to marriage is an eggregious and horrific assault on all families, pure and simple.
3. You ask, “Why lie and try to make a domestic partnership bill that addresses discrimination about marriage instead?” But, of course, it is YOU who are lying. Laws that legitimize sexual perversion are about American Culture and Marriage in all the same ways that laws enabling theft are about Private Property.
4. I find your statistics interesting, but I doubt their validity. You only cite one source, your UW voter preference poll. They, of course, are not objective, but gay rights activists. Please post links to that and your other sources to facilitate our critical analysis.
However, given your great confidence that the general public wants Homosexual Marriage I assume you will be signing the petition to get this on the ballot and prove your point once and for all, not by a quiet back-room vote on a disingenuously named bill by your fraudulently elected socialist legislators, but by a vote of the people. No?
“…your fraudulently elected socialist legislators…”
Please explain.
Well, Ed, the left does engage in a lot of ballot fraud (see Al Franken, 2008, or Christine Greqoire, 2004, for instance), but that’s not what I’m referring to.
Since at least the mid-80s the Democrat’s Party has had no agenda but socialism and the eradication of American sexual morality. The heart and soul of the Washington State Legislature since the D’s domination of it has been MASSIVE SPENDING INCREASES, moving every function that they can get their hands on from the private to the public sector, quickly, not slowly, erecting a Soviet Gomorrah.
I don’t remember even one of their candidates telling the voters in his district that he would pursue the local construction of an Estern Bloc government, or even “European Socialism” but, rather, smothered them with disingenuous plattitudes and demagogeury, like “Hope,” “Change,” and “Equality.” Nevertheless, every expansion of Government into the private sector, just as every erosion of morality, is the piecemeal destruction of freedom.
That’s fraud.
Why don’t they call them what they are – sodomites?
Good to hear from you again, Bill, your comments are always well founded and welcome.
If that question isn’t just rhetorical, it’s because it plays into the hands of the opposition, who want to claim that opposition to homosexuality is driven by hatred of homosexuals. It just sounds angry or condemning to many people. Much of the electorate is too un-engaged to discover that the charge of “hate” is a fabrication, a lie, and reject it.
how do i sign this referendum?
ive been looking online and havent found anything to get my name on it and help others do the same.
I hope to be posting a link, soon!
Doug & Leslie,
Faith and Freedom Network has a link on their main page: http://faithandfreedom.us/
Thanks, Dan.
We have the link now, to the main page and to the petition request form, both on the post “Stopping Gay Marriage”
(http://thereaganwing.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/stopping-gay-marriage/)
Since we are kinda close to the subject of gays and families, i find it so disturbing, that a gay couple would be allowed to adopt a male orphan, I find that situation selfish, and wrong. Why does a gay couple think that they can just go ahead and play house, and nobody will get hurt, regardless of their intentions? And objecting to their sexual lifestyle does not make a person hateful or bigoted. I am not angry or hatefull towards the gays and lesbians, I support them on some issues, but to shove their lifestyle in my face and force me to accept it is plain wrong, if not immoral-
Dear Gay Curmudgeon,
It seems you have written the most direct and honest post so far. This is an issue of equal rights, plain and simple. Extending legal privileges to same-sex couples is not tantamount to an “attack on marriage.” And extending to same-sex couples these legal privileges is not the equivalent of homosexuals shoving “their lifestyle” in the faces of others. It is rather extending equal legal rights to all tax-paying citizens of our great state, regardless of their sexual orientation.
It is unfortunate that in the 21st century these types of costly, legislative battles are still being waged. Make no mistake about it, Referendum 71 is bigotry – written and supported by bigots. Perhaps more troubling are those who “find it so disturbing that a gay couple would be allowed to adopt a male orphan.” I know several homosexuals, some of whom have adopted. These households are no less loving, no less nurturing, and the parents no less capable than their straight counterparts. It makes me curious as to whether those who so brazenly lash out at the gay lifestyle really know anything about it.
The argument put forth in this type of legislation can be boiled down to this: “I’m not comfortable with this, even though it affects me in no way whatsoever, so outlaw it.” I myself do have faith, though – faith that Washington voters will see this referendum for the bigotry that it is. As for Gary Randall, it might do him some good to study the word “freedom” before putting it in the title of an organization so hellbent on limiting it.
Hey, Keep, you mix a little truth with your fiction to strengthen it. Smart. But your arguments have no substance. Dumb.
Of course laws that make a difference between natural families and sexual perversion discriminate. That’s what all laws do. All laws say some activities (like reckless driving) are less desirable than their antithesis (safe driving) and discriminate agaisnt them. Behaviors, not people.
But if that is bigotry one may either be a bigot or an anarchist, there is no middle ground. All laws do is discriminate between activities. Your point is absurd.
If you want to make the case that laws that disfavor sexual perversion, in particular, are based on hatred for some group of innocent people, you have to bring some evidence to the table. You haven’t even attempted to. The total vacuum of reason and evidence in which dwells your current argument suffocates it.
Let me put that another way: your philosophical flappin’ is flippin’ foolish.
Your claim that homosexual unions “…are no less loving, no less nurturing, and the parents no less capable than their straight counterparts” would be laughable if it weren’t for the probability that some would take it at face value.
You are lying. On several fronts. First, there is no “family,” any more than the random arrangement of objects on a table is a “family” because they are all in the same place. The herculean struggle by the “happy community” to get State recognition of their arrangements is testament to their need for help in the pretense. Marriage Laws protect the children of lawful couples. Homosexual unions have no children. They have to get them somewhere else. Children drafted into such surrealistic charades are already victims, protected only by their angels.
Next, Homosexual unions are violent to a legendary degree because the sexual/psychological/spiritual union that makes marriages functional is unavailable to them. Their relationship is based on mutual sexual expoloitation. Let me prove it. Let me give it the chastitiy test. How many gay couples that you know of are saving themselves for marriage? Living in celbacy waiting for the moment of their permanent union, until death?
What percentage of them would be willing to enter a union where divorce is not an option and leaving the arrangement would entail losing all their earthly possesions? How many have their very first sexual experience only after a mutual lifetime commitment to each other? Failing that, how many believe that is what they should have done?
They do not believe in marriage, any marriage, to begin with and you don’t either.
Your straw-man “marriage proponent” admits that homosexual Marriage would not effect him “in any way whatsoever.” If you believe in freedom of speech, you should let your opponent make his own points. This one is spurious.
Societal endorsement of homosexuality (or any other extremely addctive vice) as acceptable, moreover, a “civil right” would lead untold thousands into the lifestyle, unnecessarily, overcoming their conscience with false third-party propaganda. Homosexual addiction means a radically shortened lifespan, inescapable guilt and family alienation. The children of every family in such a culture would be at risk. The critical years of influence are ALL while the succeptable children are minors. Homosexual inclinations, once acted upon, are extremely difficult to overcome, comparable to heroin addiction or worse. The targets of the homosexual movement are children. 100% children. 100% of the victims of homosexual enticement are the product of heterosexual parents. Other people’s families.
Suppose the public schools had a program that taught schoolchildren that using heroin was comparable to drinking soda pop. And that anyone who told them differently was motivated by unreasoning hatred of innocent people. Bigots. Suppose, by law, heroin was made available, WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION or penalty, next to other refreshments, at all school social functions, before school, at lunch, after school, at sporting events, in the student union, dances, plays, concerts. Suppose that people attempting to protect children from heroin use could be accused of hate crimes, called bigot, driven from the public forum. Suppose that all problems deriving from heroin use would be blamed on the hate of the anti-heroin bigots.
No one would be requiring children to use heroin. It would be a freedom issue. It would be “extending equal legal rights to all tax-paying citizens of our great state, regardless of their chemical orientation.”
Would this be a challenge to the family? To society? To the health of children?
You doubt that opponents of the “the gay lifestyle” really know anything about it.” Do you? What is the third leading cause of death among gay “couples”?
Hey Doug,
You sound kind of insane to me. Perhaps even grossly uneducated. You keep referring to homosexuality as a “sexual perversion,” which it isn’t. You also seem to think it’s a lifestyle into which people, children in particular, can be recruited, which – and I hate to sound redundant – means that you really don’t know anything about the gay lifestyle. Homosexuality is not a choice. That has been long established.
Moreover, homosexuality is not akin to “reckless driving.” Reckless driving, for example, endangers others on the road. Homosexual couples pose no such threat to others any more than heterosexual couples do. Your analogy is logically fallible.
You also seem delusional to me. “Homosexuality” is not analogous to heroin. Homosexual couples aren’t trying to “hook” children on it. And schools teaching that “heroin is comparable to drinking soda pop” is not the same as educating children about gay marriage – homosexuality, once again, is not analogous to a drug. Posing such arguments illustrates your ignorance. As does your argument about homosexual couples being “violent to a legendary degree.” From whose *** did you pull that tripe?
And the gay lifestyle only leads to family alienation if those families are as narrow-minded as you seem to be. Again, I know gay couples who are loved and accepted by their families. And the “guilt” these couples feel doesn’t derive from their lifestyle itself, but rather from the discrimination they suffer at the hands of bigots like you.
As for this “chastity test,” you seem to be attempting to apply an article of your faith, your very narrow perception of morality, to the masses. The masses, however, are not all Christians. Moreover, not all Christians practice this chastity nonsense. Remember those “purity pledges” from a while back? Were you aware that statistically the heterosexual teens who signed those pledges, vowing to wait until marriage, were far likelier to engage in oral and anal sex? Does this mean that these teens, too, should be disallowed the privilege of marriage? This chastity argument of yours doesn’t hold up, either.
You strike me as a very angry, illogical person. It’s unfortunate that you can’t defend your position with anything other than logical fallacies and snide bigotry. Your “arguments” are beneath me. Good day to you, sir.
Bill Young’s comment is interesting…what if you’re gay but not from Sodom?
Dear “Keep,”
You take a fascinating approach for a person who readily accuses others of intolerance.
“ad hominem [(ad hom-uh-nem, ad hom-uh-nuhm)]
A Latin expression meaning “to the man.” An ad hominem argument is one that relies on personal attacks rather than reason or substance.”
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Your recent comment focuses, primarily, not on reason, but scurrilous personal attacks on me.
You claim that I “don’t know anything” and that I am:
“kind of insane”
“grossly uneducated”
“delusional” and
“narrow-minded. ”
Unsatisfied with mere adjectives you call me a “bigot,” “a very angry, illogical person,” and describe my personal attributes as “ignorance,” “logical fallacies,” and “snide bigotry.”
Moreover, you present no argument or evidence for any of these smears except the simple assumption that your side of the argument is the correct one, as if it were self-evident. This is intolerant behavior on your behalf.
You do, however, present some arguments. The first is directed at a straw man. You raise the question of whether a Homosexual couple, as an enterprise, targets children for seduction. This is a straw man because it has no correlation to any argument on our side. The sexual activities of each member of a “monogamous” homosexual couple, for whatever period they remain so engaged (the track record is dismal, but presumably those who feign “marriage” would do better) only damage each other. We do not allege they are “cruising” for minors (though some “available” gays clearly do). You put these false arguments in other people’s mouths. You do it a lot.
It is the acceptance of homosexuality, as a practice, by society that imperils the children of heterosexual couples.
You help make my point that neither you, nor the gay rights movement in general, actually believe in marriage when you refer to “chastity nonsense.” The salient rejection of the fundamental principles of real marriage by proponents of the Sexual Revolution, like you, is obvious. You believe that there is no such thing as sexual morality. Actual marriage is the center of the morality of sex. Actual marriage has been under attack and gradual legal and cultural erosion for decades by liberals such as yourself and “gay marriage” is just the next step in its deconstruciton. Actual marriage is a commitment to exclusivity of sexual relations with a lifetime partner that begins before marriage and is made without the modern contingencies of any “emotional” or any other “compatibility.” That non-conditional, total commitment, financial, social and sexual, to the spouse, to the children that proceed from the union and belief in that institution, are fundamental to human civilization but not even contemplated by same-sex hookups. It is, in fact, a prerequisite to civilization that you imperil. Marriage preceded government and has dominated all civilizations, throughout human history, regardless of religion. But overwhelming majorities of all humans throughout all history have believed in God and have believed that their marriage was in His purposes. “Families” are fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts, uncles, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. These relationships can be recognized by law, but cannot be synthesized by law anymore than a law can make a donkey into an elephant.
Your claim that teens who sign “purity pledges” are more likely to engage in non-coital sex acts is more evidence on my side. It demonstrates the effect on sexual behavior of a social belief. These teens (and I am taking your implied “statistics” at face value) have steered their sexual expressions away from the natural sex act because of their personal commitment. It mirrors Bill Clinton’s behavior with Monica Lewinski, misguided, to be sure, but done with an eye to avoiding “real sex,” in preference to a perceived “loophole” for sexual gratification. As you may be aware, they actually now teach such “loopholes” in government sex education. The teens had, in their mind, made sexual intercourse “off limits,” and avoided it. Millions have done the same thing with hard drugs, preferring marijuana to narcotics, and that is, clearly, a better choice. The same holds true with homosexuality. That it is, and should remain, socially unacceptable, has, and will, keep millions from being ensnared in it. This is, I know, heresy to your Sexual Revolution Religion, but it can be statistically demonstrated that the number of “homosexuals” in any culture varies with its level of acceptance in that culture.
Out of time, More later.
“Keep” said: Homosexuality is not a choice. That has long been established.
No “keep” it hasn’t. That is a old gay’s tale circulating in order to justify gay perversion. In fact, an American Psychological Association publication includes an admission that there’s no homosexual “gene” — meaning it’s not likely that homosexuals are born that way.
For decades, the APA has not considered homosexuality a psychological disorder, while other professionals in the field consider it to be a “gender-identity” problem. But the new statement, which appears in a brochure called “Answers to Your Questions for a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality,” states the following:
“There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles….”
That contrasts with the APA’s statement in 1998: “There is considerable recent evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person’s sexuality.”
Furthermore, the Human Genome Project has repeatedly asserted that it has NOT discovered a “gay gene”, a FACT which gays choose to ignore. That’s why the black community is so up in arms over the gay’s co-opting the “civil rights” argument to your sexual insanity in the same category as their skin color, WHICH IS GENETICALLY DETERMINED.
Face it, you’re just a common pervert and have chosen to believe a lie along with it.
Where will people be with the petitions so that I can sign? I am in the Tacoma area.
I’m a PR/Marketing professional and Catholic who is willing to help. Please let me know how to get involved so we can get these signatures.
I also want to sign and do not know where, in Pullman, to go to sign.
Happy to sign….please post places where that can be done. Or mail me a form and I will collect signatures.
I just want to know where I can get a petition to sign! Let them call me and have a “Conversation” if they like. it won’t change my mind and I won’t be intimidated.
Where can I sign in Federal Way
Where do I sign referendum 71. I look all over the net, but all I can find it the decline to sign 71 and I WANT TO SIGN. please if someone could send me a link or let me know where it is I go to sign.
Thank you and God Bless,
Eric Pyle
ErqPyle@yahoo.com
Where can I sign in Spokane?
To all who need pettitions:
We are not ignoring you, but do not have printed pettitions, yet.
Lay seige in that other realm. Bind the strong man. If we unite this coalition under ordinate leadership, the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
Re petitions: we really need to have them now (sorry) given the deadline that is quickly approaching. Can’t you simply create a form, save it as a pdf file, make it available online for those of us who want to download and copy it ourselves for use in our local markets? That seems to me to be fast and easy. I have people here who are waiting to sign but getting the many signatures needed in the small window is going to take time.
In response to the many comments above about homosexuality and the need for legislation, my thinking is that laws that legalize such partnerships are about much more than those partnerships and much more than marriage. In my opinion, these actions are really intended to change society’s norms and values. Ultimately, the goal is to cause our society to believe that homosexuality is normal and good.
That is why such decisions are so very important. What we are debating is a change in the fabric of our society, in our value system, in our normative structure.
The legal, social and religious repercussions go far beyond domestic partnerships.
I am quite indifferent and unaffected by the gay/stright-DOMA/gay marriage-adoption conversation. I just don’t get it. I just don’t understand why so many people are threatened (on both sides) by these issues.
As a society, many of us are convinced that we have found “the” correct path and that other divergent paths are wrong. “The” correct path has varied from generation to generation. We once believed that denying women the right to vote, keeping blacks as slaves and assigning them a value equivalent to 3/5 a person were valid and correct paths to which society was expected to adhere.
Should women’s voices be hushed and black people be enslaved and traded like cattle again? For the sake of consensus and re-establishing morality, should America once again put only white men at the helm to quiet the divergent opinions that arise from blacks, women, and the like?
As a black man, I see the “gay movement” as a predominantly white movement. This is unique in American history. And, I never thought I would live to see a day when one white man would say that another white man should be treated with the same disregard that was formerly (and in some cases, currently) afforded to minorities and women.
As for homosexuality causing a moral decline in values. Perhaps it has added to the equation of decline. But, I would direct anyone to read Napolean Hill’s “THINK AND GROW RICH”. He talks about the moral decline coming about due a lack of character and an increased focus on lubricating social interactions. If re-establishing morality and values in America is the core issue at hand, then we each need to take personal responsibility for our part in the weakening of our collective moral fabric.
I am moral most of the time. But, I admit I am flawed, and my flaws may be the very things that prevent me from understanding why intelligent people from all affected camps can’t sit down and create synergy. Businesses employ synergistic solutions all the time. Marriage counselors advise synergy for happy marriages.
Why does this subject, like any other highly contentious subject in America (at least), have to come down to only 1 of 2 options in a dualistic modality? Maybe if we did the hard work now, acknowledged the planks in our own eyes, we could develop a solution that benefits everyone and permanently removes these types of questions from our consciousness.
I personally worship, share, and honour people in my life. I don’t agree with everything that people say and do, but I strongly believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to chose his/her own success or failure independent of a tyrannical and intolerant majority, be it homosexual, heterosexual, Christian, or atheist.
I re-iterate that I argue neither in-favor-of or against the issues that referendum 71 seeks address. I just long for an enlightened discourse that does not end with one group in triumphant celebration and another vowing retribution.
Kevin, the Left hit it’s “highwater mark” in Nov 2008. Now the trend is going the other way.
You and your Leftist Cabal perhaps don’t see it but the public is slowly getting very angry. Although perhaps you do see it as there is a conciliatory tone in your writing that wouldn’t be seen in the “Kill Bush” atmosphere you were encouraging a year ago.
So, now you want a change in tone. Didn’t bother you back a year ago, but now the worm is turning isn’t it!!!
I see by Nov 2009 the anger against “liberals” and the “left” will be far stronger than what we saw last year against Republicans but from our perspective we must be sure that the Republican Left (the RINOS) don’t put on their “Conservative Mask” and take advantage of the anger like they did in 1994.
But so far they have been. The so-called tea bagging event only seemed to serve as a means for specific Mainstreamer leaders to falsely gain “conservative creds”. They went to these events, attended by people who didn’t know who they really were, tickled their ears by some “just words” conservative sounding speeches, and now these people think these RINOS are conservative when of course the exact opposite is true.
It is critical for us to get out of this “Bush-Clinton-Bush” cycle we have been in. I don’t know if the next REPUG candidate will be Jeb Bush, but of course the pattern I am talking about is LEFTIST REPUBICAN (Daddy and W Bush) then LEFTIST DEMOCRATIC (CLINTON and OBAMA) back again to LEFTIST REPUBLICAN and then back to Leftist Democrat.
As bad as Obama is I am not going to support the greater cycle we have been stuck in by supporting Leftist Republican be it Jeb Bush or Milt Romney.
We are angry, we should be angry, but be careful. Don’t let our anger play into the RINOs hand as it did in 2000 when so many of us voted for Bush.
By the way, I see Referendum 71 as a way to sniff out those RINOS out there who might otherwise be able to deceive people and successfully take advantage of this justified anger to get elected.
Referedum 71 – removing the façade that the tea party helped to put on.
Referedum 71 – taking off the RINOS sheeps clothing to reveal the Leftist Wolf within.
Kevin,
It is quite refreshing when someone recognizes their limitations. It must take a certain amount of courage to admit, “I just don’t get it.”
But I believe I can sort a lot of this out for you. The first problem, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, is not that you don’t know anything, but that so much of what you know just isn’t true.
Part of the problem is that you have simply and uncritically bought into cultural marxist propaganda.
You muse about “why so many people are threatened…” as if “being threatened” was some part of the motivation to oppose gay marriage. It is not. Opponents of gay marriage do not feel personally threatened in any way.
You say “’the’ correct path has varied from generation to generation.” It has not. Homosexuality is, quite objectively, a perversion of natural sexuality and always has been. The biological purpose of sex is reproduction. This has not changed recently. The purpose of marital reproduction is families and the natural outgrowth of natural families is supernatural parental and filial love. These are all foreign to gay hookups.
The attempt to deceive impressionable children into a widespread cultural scam that “gay” can lead to “family” is unconscionable. It cannot.
Your attempt at comparing women’s suffrage to normalizing sexual perversion, as well as your comparison of racial prejudice to sexual morality shows the depth of your misunderstanding of homosexuality. You simply assume that homosexuality is genetic. It has been known for some time that there is no genetic determinant, whatsoever. Scientifically proven, but unpublicized.
Simply because gay behavior is highly addictive does not make it involuntary any more than alcoholism, heroin use or kleptomania are a human “nature.” Each of them is a destructive habit that can be broken and that fact has been proven, repeatedly, over and over again.
Your question, “For the sake of consensus and re-establishing morality, should America once again put only white men at the helm… to quiet the divergent opinions…” is both foolish and highly offensive. No one has a corner on truth because of their gender or race, the racially discriminatory prounouncements of Sonia Sotomayor notwithstanding. Your implication that white men were ever chosen as leaders to supress opinion is historic fantasy and cultural marxism, unvarnished.
Where did you get it, from Howard Zinn?
You say, “I never thought I would live to see a day when one… would say that another… should be treated with the same disregard… afforded to minorities and women.” First of all, no one is saying anything comparable to that. Second, the greatest cache of racism today, is anti-white racism among blacks as a direct result of culturally marxist education and racist black advocacy organizations like the NAACP. And the forced imposition of divorce, single motherhood, masculine sex roles and misandry on women by the culturally marxist “Women’s Movement” is the greatest assault on women in the history of the nation. Among their crimes is the historic revision you spout, unquestioningly.
Homosexuality does not cause “a moral decline in values,” it IS moral decline, itself.
“Re-establishing morality and values in America” is NOT “the core issue at hand.” It has nothing to do with the political question. The question is whether we intend to allow a deeper ravaging of our culture by dishonest men with evil intentions, the men who lie about their opposition and their own intentions and whose objective is the toppling of American morality. Every action of the Marriage Movement for the last twenty years has been DEFENSIVE, yet typified by propagandists, whose dogma you repeat, as “an attempt to expand morality” in some way, through politics. These are lies.
Homosexual behavior is destructive by nature, every act damaging each partner.
All Children are born heterosexual by nature. Nevertheless, many, particularly children abused by one or more parents, or sexually abused by anyone, are succeptible to homosexual enticement that has all the allure of any sexual enticement. It is essential for those children to be protected from the false assertion that they can choose to gratify that transient urge without deeply negative consequences. Legitimizing Gay relationships does exactly that. It would be exactly the same to legislate that opiates are to be treated as equal with breakfast cereals. The damage in the offing is extensive.
It is those who seek to perpetrate this scam on children who are engaged in a de facto act of hate.
Homosexuality IS a “sexual perversion” in that it is not natural. Whether you believe in God, who told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” or you are of Darwinian persuasion, the idea of homosexuality makes no sense…the whole purpose of having sex, from a humanistic viewpoint, is to reproduce…with homosexuality it is impossible to reproduce a man with a man or a woman with a woman…it is UNNATURAL and an abomination in the eyes of God (and the abomination goes to those who support homosexuals as well…read Romans 1:24-32). If these laws keep going through allowing gays and lesbians to marry or have “anything but marriage” laws, then where does it stop? What is next?? Legalized poligamy! Legalized beastiality!!And if these “anything but marriage” laws go into effect then what about the heterosexual couple who choose to stay together but not get married…what “rights” do they have? Are they able to claim their girlfriend/boyfriend on their insurance? Or any other benefits that is entitled to only married couples?? How binding is this “anything but marriage” going to be if a man meets another man at a bar one day and three days later declares his “partner” as his “lifemate” and then decides 2 weeks after that he doesn’t want to live with this new man anymore?? Does he just walk away and find a new man???? (I have known, personally, several “fickle” homosexuals in my past, who passed from one man to another man like a teenaged girl who had a new love each week). I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe that God intended for one man to be married to one woman and that He created marriage in the beginning when He created Adam and Eve. I believe that today’s society has turned their back on God and we are now reaping the reward for our disobedience to Him. We have more and more children today who grow up confused, who doesn’t have an identity, who are rebellious, hurting, angry at society because they are not being given direction. They are being told that they can do whatever they want with their lives…they can love whomever they want, etc…but what does a child know about how to love if it is not shown to them in a structured way? When it is OK for parents to divorce, when parents cheat on each other, when perversions are made “legal”, how can a child honestly grow up to be “normal” and have a healthy relationship with ANYONE let alone someone they are suppose to pick as their mate?? I do not “hate” gays and lesbians. Growing up I had gay friends, and over the years I have worked with lesbians. I do not believe that God hates them either. God loves them, He just doesn’t like their behavior. I do not want to be called a “hatemonger” because I feel that marriage should be between a man and a woman only. Should anyone be called hateful if they think that murder is wrong, or abortion is wrong, or child rape is wrong?? No…
Here is what we must stress again and again.
The only freedom at stake in the debate over gay marriage is the freedom of those who have a moral or religious objection to the homosexual lifestyle to be able to respectfully live their lives in accordance with those beliefs. Both of these rights can only be maintained if the government maintains complete neutrality with respect to homosexual relationships.
http://www.fpiw.org/index.php?section=71
What would you say to people like John Barrowman who believe that people are “made to be gay”?
Here [are links to] a BBC documentary that goes into the possible causes of his homosexuality.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-SearchBox&q=YouTube+john+barrowman+making+of+me&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
[Re:] Making of Me:
John Barrowman
So, why is John Barrowman a homosexual? [The] BBC documentary looks into current scientific research regarding homosexuality and theories about one might be born with homosexuality “pre-programmed” in them.
The Family Policy Institute of WA now has signature sheets for Referendum 71.
The mailing deadline for signature sheets is July 22, 2009.
This is the information I just got as of 4:50 PM. So, as of now it has started.
Let’s find out who the TRUE CONSERVATIVES are in 2009. Then in 2010 we will know the pretenders. For by 2010 there will be a lot of angry people against the Democrats and politicians will be lining up to run just like they were in 1994.
Unfortuntely, we know what happened with all too many who won in 1994. We can’t afford to be fooled again.
Mail a copy of the petition to all current Republicans you know of especially the politicians. Be sure to ask anyone who you might think is going to run in 2010 and of course Republicans who are currently in public office. When they do not sign then we will have unmasked another RINO!
Ref 71 – effectively removes the “sheeps clothing” from the RINOS that are lurking waiting to take advantage of the Republican Revolution 2.0.
Let’s all vow to NOT BE FOOLED AGAIN. And Ref 71 can ensure they can’t pretend to be something they aren’t!
(We can also use this to distinguish all the RINOS in the Party structure although anyone involved in the party structure usually knows who the RINOS are).
Next year when they come at us telling us what good conservatives they are and we must fight the evil ole Democrats elected all we need to do is turn to them and say, you aren’t a conservative. I gave you an opportunity to sign Ref 71 and you didn’t sign it. You are a RINO. You are like Bush, you are like Dole, you are like McCain. We have shown through the Bush – Clinton – Bush – Obama cycle we have been in that electing RINOS just means more spending from the Republicans leading to an even more extreme Democrat later on. Yeah, we need to elect good CONSERVATIVES to office, but you ain’t a good conservative. How can I prove you aren’t a good conservative (in a quick way for everyone to understand)? You didn’t sign Ref 71.
Ref 71 the RINO KILLER.
Felix,
Science has been highly successful in isolating the genetic causes of human attributes (like hair color) that have genetic roots, but “psychology” has been a dismal failure at pinpointing causality for ANYTHING and homosexuality has no genetic roots to find.
Human behavior involves heredity and environment, but also the application of a third factor, human will, to the equation.
If, as is the religious belief of atheists, all that exists is matter, it would be possible to identify every factor in human behavior, including the will, but the abject failure of the “bastard sciences” to conclude anything consistently predictive is testament to the error of that faith.
The physical sciences can never determine how John Barrowman became who he is anymore than how Ted Bundy, or much greater monsters than Bundy, like George Tiller, became who they are, or how Hulk Hogan (who could crush any of them like a bug) became who he is (psychologically).
Materialism is not Science. Science is the examination of the physical universe. Materialism is the belief (based on nothing) that the physical universe is all that exists. No 2-dimensional experiments can prove or disprove the existence of a third or fourth dimension, but we humans, being able to perceive in more than two dimensions, can recognize that in addition to width and breadth there is also depth… and time.
In the same way it is possible for humans, whose existence (to some degree) transcends the physical universe, to perceive in the spiritual dimension (which, by the way, does not contradict physical truth). And it is there that the attributes and nature of the will can be known.
That is the direct answer to your question, Felix. Objective Science is well aware that they will never find a genetic determinant, but Materialist Scientists will never give up the charade of “research” as a political trick, like “Global Warming” (and the “New Ice Age” before it).
Steve, are you a complete fool?
Do you even know what a referendum is?
A referendum repeals a bill that has already passed into law.
In this case we are talking about SB 5688. SB stands for Senate Bill. When a bill is on a “fast track” it is put in both as a House Bill (ie. HB) and a Senate Bill and then whichever one gets through the process more quickly is the one they choose. It is called a “companion bill “(noted as cf to the other bill) but the wording of the legislation is close to if not exactly the same. In this case the companion legislation in the House was numbered HB 1727.
You say that Ref 71 will be a “RINO” killer because it will flush out the RINOs and people would hold them accountable in 2010 for not supporting Ref 71 in 2009. But how about the Republicans who supported this legislation when it was going through the process in Olympia? I have not seen anyone “out” these legislators as RINOS. Through all this talk of Ref 71 has there been any effort to identify the Republicans responsible?
Let’s start here. Do you know what it is to be a co-sponsor of a bill? It means you support the bill so much that you want your name associated with it.
Okay,
So, were there any Republicans who co-sponsored SB 5688? Now since that was the senate bill one would have to be a senator to have sponsored it.
Well the answer is no.
But then, remember the companion bill, in the House HB 1727? Well there the answer is YES, there were REPUBLICANS who co-sponsored that bill.
They were:
Norm Johnson of Yakama
and
Maureen Walsh of Walla Walla.
Supporting this legislation hasn’t hurt them any so what makes you think 71 will be a RINO killer?
and no I didn’t just make it up.
all you have to do is go to the following web page to see for yourself.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1727&year=2009
Representative Norm Johnson
and
Representative Maureen Walsh
supported the same kind of legislation in the House of Representatives that eventually got enacted through the senate “Companion Bill” version.
They can lie about it all they want.
But this is the truth.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1727&year=2009
Now let’s get back to how this legislation got passed so a referendum is needed.
In the House they had a hearing on the house version (HB 1727) at the House Committee on Ways & Means at on February 27, 1:30 PM. But I guess they decided to go with the Senate Bill as their vehicle to get the legislation passed so we need to look at how SB 5688 became Chapter 521, 2009 Laws.
Well it was voted on by the full Senate on March 10, 2009. It got 30 Yeas (that means the people who voted for it for those in Rio Linda) and 35 Nays (those who voted against if for those in Rio Linda) and there was one person who didn’t want to vote one way or the other on it. The person was “excused”.
So where there any Republicans in the Senate who voted in favor of the bill?
Well there were indeed three Republicans:
Senator Dale Brandland, the Repubican whip, no less, of Bellingham.
Senator Curtis King of Yakima
Senator Cheryl Pflug of Maple Valley
And then there was the special case of Ms. Linda Evans Parlette of Wenatchee. Excuuuse me? Well excuuse her, at least she was excused when this critical vote was taking place. They call it excused but I call it being cowardly and arrogant!
So, Steve, three, probably four more RINOS, legislators who supported the very legislation that Ref 71 is trying to repeal. But no one is trying to out them for this. Where’s the outrage against them?
and no I didn’t just make it up.
all you have to do is go to the following web page to see for yourself.
http://flooractivityext.leg.wa.gov/rollcall.aspx?id=31889&bienId=20
Well there were indeed three Republicans:
Senator Dale Brandland of Bellingham who is the Repubican whip (and he hasn’t been removed of that position)
Senator Curtis King of Yakima
Senator Cheryl Pflug of Maple Valley
And then there was Ms. Excuuse me Parlette of Witchhunt land.
They can lie about it all they want.
But this is the truth.
http://flooractivityext.leg.wa.gov/rollcall.aspx?id=31889&bienId=20
Sorry I must have spent too much time in Rio Linda myself. The Senate vote was yeas, 30; nays, 18; excused, 1.
Everything else about it was correct though
Of the Yeas there were three Republicans
Dale Brandland of Bellingham
Curtis King of Yakima
Cheryl Pflug of Maple Valley
And Linda Evans Parlette had herself declared “excused” on the vote.
Okay now what happened to the bill when it went through the House?
Were there any Republicans in the House who voted for SB 5688 (the legislation that Ref 71 is trying to repeal) when the legislation went to them?
Well it was voted on by the full House on April 15, 2009. It got 62 Yeas (that means the people who voted for it for those in Rio Linda) and 35 Nays (those who voted against if for those in Rio Linda) and there was one person who didn’t want to vote one way or the other on it. The person was “excused”. Unlike with the Senate, this excuused person was a Democrat, Dennis Flannigan.
So, did any Republicans vote for this legislation that we are now trying to Repeal with Ref 71? There were two.
They were:
Norm Johnson of Yakama
and
Maureen Walsh of Walla Walla.
and no I didn’t just make it up.
all you have to do is go to the following web page to see for yourself.
http://flooractivityext.leg.wa.gov/rollcall.aspx?id=32557&bienId=20
They were indeed:
Rep. Norm Johnson of Yakama
and
Rep. Maureen Walsh of Walla Walla.
They can lie about it all they want.
But this is the truth.
http://flooractivityext.leg.wa.gov/rollcall.aspx?id=32557&bienId=20
My apologies to Paul (who is a new poster) and readers for getting his posts up, very late. Neither I nor another editor was available to validate the posts… and they’re very valid.
The fact is, Paul, due to the vicious backlash from the Republican Left, very few are willing to hold legislators or Party officials accountable. Republican RINOs are so bad, many grassroots Republicans refuse to believe it when they’re told the truth about their “leaders.”
The Reagan Wing made the decision in 2004, as the Party Elite were, literally, controlling nominations with illegal censorship, to expose their actions, and the responsibility for this fell to the biggest mouth, yours truly. What followed was even worse.
Since I began to tell the truth about GOP RINOs, I have been accused of “slander” (by slanderers), assaulting women, being a member of the KKK, being insane, angry, racist and I was threatened with being sodomized with an inanimate object. All this behind my back, most anonymously, much of it done in illegal secret sessions of the State Executive Board.
I appreciate the wave, following the Party’s self-destruction in 2008, of others willing to stand against the almost unbelievable corruption that permeates the highest levels of the WSRP, like dry rot, and has for many years. At last people are waking to it, many of them “new” to the Party process and, hence, less invested in wearing a blindfold to get along with the power brokers.
Welcome to my world.
Gosh, not one but two Repug Legislators from Yakima voted for this thing.
When I think of Yakima I think of Eastern Washington of course and I think that these people are supposed to be among the most conservative.
I guess at least as it concerns Yakima this is a myth.
It looks like they got some brokeback action going on there.
I wonder what Yakima Republicans have to say for themselves.
Thanks, Paul for this important information we all must keep in mind this year and into the Next.
We need to think up some song or some other way to remember these people. I want them to be famous.
Norm Johnson, Maureen Walsh, Dale Brandland, Curtis King, and Cheryl Pflug have all declared themselves enemies of the family.
And as for Linda Evans Parlette, how dare us even ask her. It’s not like voting on important legislation is her job so in the words of Steve Martin, excuuse me! No excuuse her!
(By the way you only gave us the Senate vote. How did the vote in the House turn out)?
Everyone who cares about Ref 71 needs to go to this web page.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=5688&year=2009
Paul well written – thank you for all your explanations and the websites!
Larry Stickney of Protect Marriage Washington casts himself as victim of bigotry and hatred?
Isn’t this the same Larry Stickney who respects the “sanctity of marriage” so much that he has been married three times? Does he know what “for better or worse” means? Does he know what a sacred vow is?
Isn’t this the country where more than 50 percent of heterosexual marriages end in divorce, and where spousal and child abuse is rampant?
Just whom are we protecting the “sacred institution of marriage” from?
One Government – 2 sets of laws for different people.
“We are to protest against a form of goverment existing without the consent of the governed – to declare our rights, to be represented in the government which we are taxed to support.” – Elizabeth Cady Stanton July 1848
Such truth spoken for womens right in 1848 that can still be applied in this day against referendum 71. I have read all these blogs for and against homosexuals. Referendum 71 doesn’t only just protect the civil rights of gays and lesbians, but also the right of many widows and widowers who are straight.
My faith has nothing to do with peoples’ civil rights. I can quite comfortably serve God regardless of whether a couple has the right to be married or not, or in this case a civil union.
I find that you christians have some very strange beliefs. I used to be one of you then I found freedom from religion. I finally understood that religion makes second class citizens out of everyone one except heterosexual males. Christianity is the only religion where ignorance is encouraged. There are always those select few who are against education, especially science. The bible called you “sheep” it isn’t a compliment by the way.
Oh, and please do pray for me, just get it all out of your system. I’m a lesbian just for the record, and worse than that I’m a grandmother, heaven forbid I gave birth to my own children! Another fact for you, straight men are the perverts and child molesters. If you don’t believe me go work in a men state prison and find out for yourself.
You people really are sheep. Lamb chop anyone?
“Free Thinker”:
Larry Stickney Does NOT “cast” himself as victim, he points out that he is under attack. And it is as clear as a bell to anyone with the ability to reason that all the bigotry and hatred is on one side. Rational citizens oppose the unnecessary government spread of homosexuality. Homosexual advocates, by contrast, personally attack, vilify and mischaracterize “Christians,” as you do Stickney, here.
You accuse Stickney of THREE lifetime partners, implying hypocrisy? What’s your real name, you sniveling coward? How many sexual encounters have you had this week? This month? This year? And what are YOUR sexual practices, you who preach your anti-morality morality?
Larry Stickney doesn’t measure up to your standards?
Your inability to reason is staggering. You complain of the deterioration of American Sexual morality as if it were an argument against sexual morality. As if it were a reason to take an exponentially larger step down the same road. Do you think?
You ask, “Just whom are we protecting the ‘sacred institution of marriage’ from?”
You, genius.
You say, “One Government – 2 sets of laws for different people.”
You seem to have missed the point that such foolishness is precisely the thing Referendum 71 is opposing.
You argue (with incredible lack of logic) that the complaint of women contending for voting rights: “We are to protest against a form of government existing without the consent of the governed” can “still be applied in this day against referendum 71.” That is absurd. There is no “sexual orientation” restriction on voting and never has been. No one is seeking it. Losing elections is not “government without representation.” Grow some integrity.
You say, “I have read all these blogs for and against homosexuals.”
I’m sorry, but that’s just a lie. Neither Ref. 71, nor I suggest any action against “homosexuals.” As a liberal, you naturally think in terms of identity politics, as if race, gender and ethnicity, for instance, deserve consideration in the voting booth. I’m sorry to be the first to inform you, but those of us who are activists for freedom don’t think that way. We think in syllogisms, not images. We think logically, not emotionally. Good laws prohibit behaviors. Liberal laws choose winners and losers based on shallow distinctions of identity, playing God, distributing favors, stealing property and re-distributing it to the constituency of covetousness. Don’t pretend we are like you.
You say, “I find that you christians (sic) have some very strange beliefs. I used to be one of you…”
No, you didn’t.
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” I John 2:19
You followed religion. That’s not Christianity.
You say, “Christianity is the only religion where ignorance is encouraged.”
Then why, being “free” of it, is your post so fraught with its antecedents?
Since science has disproved the central theme of the “gay rights” movement, your claim that a “select few” Christians are against science rings a bit hollow. And you might have trouble explaining why Christian mothers, without any prior training, out-perform the entire $10,000-per-child-per-year education establishment hands down, teaching at home, without pay, handicapped by having to pay for the socialist/agnostic schools they aren’t using.
And if the Bible called Christians “sheep,” what, pray tell, does it call you? Let me know if you need help with that one.
So you are a lesbian grandmother. It must have been hard living a part of your life pretending to be a Christian and another pretending to be a wife. Do you know what “for better or worse” means? Do you know what a sacred vow is? How is it that, since you were “born gay,” you were willing to lie to a man, in violation of your “sacred vow” long enough to conceive children more than once? I don’t suppose we should expect something as stringent as sexual fidelity when you can’t even master basic honesty.
Or, is it possible you actually did participate in a marriage? Possible that you enjoyed natural sexual relations? My guess is that the truth of your life, if ever brought into the light, would make a wonderful argument for Referendum 71.
Your hatred for “straight men,” whom you call “the perverts and child molesters” is, in fact, more of the bigotry you falsely see in others.
There is probably no greater example of your inability to reason than your contention that it is possible to get a good cross-section of “straight men” in a state prison.
There is probably no greater example of bigotry in this whole debate than your closing comment calling people “sheep” and then suggesting cannibalism.
Okay now what happened to the bill when it went through the House?
Were there any Republicans in the House who voted for SB 5688 (the legislation that Ref 71 is trying to repeal) when the legislation went to them?
Well it was voted on by the full House on April 15, 2009. It got 62 Yeas (that means the people who voted for it for those in Rio Linda) and 35 Nays (those who voted against if for those in Rio Linda) and there was one person who didn’t want to vote one way or the other on it. The person was “excused”. Unlike with the Senate, this excuused person was a Democrat, Dennis Flannigan.
So, did any Republicans vote for this legislation that we are now trying to Repeal with Ref 71? There were two.
They were:
Norm Johnson of Yakama
and
Maureen Walsh of Walla Walla.
http://flooractivityext.leg.wa.gov/rollcall.aspx?id=32557&bienId=20
Indeed you are right about whole Eastern Washington vs Seattle area thing.
Of the five Republicans who voted for this legislation only one of them is from the Seattle Area. And this is only if you stretch the definition of “Seattle area” past perhaps it’s breaking point. And that would be Cheryl Pflug of Maple Valley.
And again, that is really stretching the term “Seattle area”. Yeah, Maple Valley is in King County but Maple Valley is on the east side of the Urban growth line. It is more on the rural edge of the whole rural-suburban-urban spectrum.
It can be confidentially argued that it would indeed be inappropriate to call Maple Valley “Seattle area” but from the traditional Western vs Eastern Washington divide some like to break state politics into it comes the closest.
And then you have Dale Brandland of Bellingham. Would Bellingham be considered “Eastern” or “Western”. I know the answer geographically of course but I mean in the sense that academics call Australia “North” when referring to North and South in geo-economic terms.
Well I don’t know if we can place it safety in either category but I have never thought of Bellingham, as it is the location of Western Washington University as being anything but liberal so in this discusion that is what is important.
What is important is that indeed of the remaining three there is no doubt that they are from Eastern Washington which historically we have tended to think of as being conservative. Two of them from Yakima, yeah, Yakima GOP what’s up with that.
Has Yakima turned in to some gay Eastern Washington Mecca that I haven’t heard of?
Both Rep. Norm Johnson and Sen. Curtis King are of the 14th legislative district.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/Results.aspx?District=14
The other Representative in the 14th district did indeed vote against this legislation but what’s up between the other too? Yakima Republicans have a lot of explaining to do!
And then Walla Wall Walsh. What’s up with Walla Walla?
Norm Johnson and Curtis King. These RINO cowboys are taking Yakima for Broke (back).
(Gosh I wish I was a cartoonist. Just think of the t-shirts that could me made up for this and then they could be passed out at Republicans events. Just think how pissed the establishment would be. Conservatives need to get into the art of political cartoons. Perhaps some photo shop photo could use this theme).
Yeah, I like the name Walla Walla Walsh to remember her.
Do not know what we can do with Cheryl Pflug. Her last names make me think of faucets (Price Pfister you know the “Pf” in Pfister like the”Pf” in Pflug). Her last name does rhyme with slug, so perhaps something with that. I guess tea bagging has some sexual conotation, perhaps “slugging it” or perhaps I should spell it “Pflugging it” has some sexual connotation. Or at least we can pretend it does.
As in I certainly don’t want to see people “pflugging it” in the park. Sure sounds dirty even though I know there is no such word even in slang. But then again that’s how slang words get started. Someone has to start it.
As for Dale Brandland. Well when I hear the word Brandland it kind of rhymes with Candy Man. And so when I hear his name I think of Wilie Wonka. And I mean the 2005 Johnny Deep scary childperv looking version not the 1971 Gene Wilder one.
We can even even use the “Candy Man” Song to remember Dale Brandland and his complicity.
“Who can vote for homosexuals? Vote to destroy the family”. Dale Brandland Can, Dale Brandland can, Dale Brandland is the Republican Whip and he voted again you and me.
Now what are we going to with a problem like Linda Evans. She refused to even vote. Now when I think of Linda Evans I think of the actress, the one who was on Dynasty in the 1980s.
Now I know that Linda Evans Parlette isn’t actually that Linda Evans.
That Linda Evans actually lives near Yelm, Washington so she can be close to her cult leader – JZ Knight, a lady who claims to “channel” Ramtha 35000 year-old spirit-warrior. But even though she isn’t “that Linda Evans” still I bet she has benefited by the fame of that Linda Evans so maybe use some type of Ramtha allusion to remember her.
http://yelm.com/2009/05/local-linda-evans-wins-uk-real.html
http://www.rickross.com/reference/ramtha/ramtha26.html
Though even though she is female I kind of like the whole Steve Martin “Wild and Crazy” guy thing since the whole catch phrase to that all is “Well excuuuse me” and the point of remembering her is that she excused herself from the vote. Maybe something that mixes the whole Linda Evans Actress cult follower and the Wild and Crazy Excuuuse Me thing.
“Who can vote for homosexuals? Vote to destroy the family”. Dale Brandland Can, Dale Brandland can, Dale Brandland is the Republican Whip and he voted against you and me.
Hee Hah it’s Norm Johnson and Curtis King – The RINO Cowboys. They are going brokeback on Yakima.
(File under things you will not read in an Yakima tourist brochure).
If Ref 71 doesn’t pass you will see people Pfluggin’ it everywhere . Even in public parks.
I certainly don’t want to see Ref. 71 get Pflugged down the drain.
Walla Walla Walsh voted against me and you.
I know the third guy in 14th legislative district, the other state representative, voted against this legislation but gosh have you seen his picture? He is just a boi.
For some reason I don’t think it is a good idea to stay much after a 14th District Republican PCO meeting. It seems like an event you would want get as far away from as possible.
I don’t want to even thing of what goes on there.
Yakima Republicans, doing to Republicans what Brokeback did to Mountains.
Pflugging it in Maple Valley .
(File it under bumperstickers of drivers who you want to stay as far away from as possible).
Remember that song way, way back called “Rhinestone cowboy”
Someone should write a song about Norm Johnson and Curtis King – the Rino Cowboys.
Only Ramtha knows what Linda Evans Parlette’s position on Ref 71 is.
Linda Evans Parlette one wild and crazy senator. Want to know her position on Ref 71 well excuuse me, how dare you even ask. Ask Ramtha instead!
Walla Walla Walsh voted for sodomy.
(Candy man music in the background).
Dale Brandland… Dale Brandland…
(can’t you see him with a cane and his dancing shoes and with all the other dancers being cute young bois).
Dale Brandland can… Dale Brandland can…
(Now see if some real daring pco was in his district and he came to speak at one of their meetings, that pco should bring a small cd/mp3 player with the Candy Man song on it and right when he comes up to speak turn it on. That indeed would be so funny)
Does anyone know if Yakima has a young republicans club?
If they do, I wouldn’t be surprised if it consisted of all bois.
Norm Johnson and Curtis King – The RINO Cowboys. Going for Brokeback in Yakima.
As usual its all backwards here. Referendum 71 if it were to succeed in blocking equal access to government would open the door to future legal challenges.
The difference between Washington and California is that Washington has already had a DOMA challenge and the court has ruled that the state can limit access to a particular contract for whatever lame reason they want AS LONG AS the features of that contract are available to all citizens by some means. As one of the justices put it ‘go to the legislature and ask for these rights – if they don’t give them come back and see us.’ Limiting the rights as Referendum 71 does is a direct invitation to a court challenge, one the court has telegraphed sympathy with.
The recent decision on Prop 8 in California was the same ruling from a slightly different angle. The court ruled it was an amendment and not the harder to get revision because it do did not limit the access of citizens to the same rights – California already has full featured domestic partnership legislation. All Prop 8 was about was a word, and all it did was give future license of that word to a contract limited to opposite gender couples. That’s all. All citizens retain the same rights and the court even went out of its way to state that any attempt to remove rights (as Referendum 71 is trying to do) would be a constitutional revision.
So both courts now say it is ok to have different contracts but that both contracts need to encompass the same features.
Again, referendum 71 is an invitation to future law suits – if both contract were left identical there would be no successful grounds for a challenge – the Washington court has already ruled on that.
But then this really isn’t about preventing challenges – this is about special rights for some and raising money for political organizations.
(I do wish someone would post a picture of one of the ballots – with 114 pages of text on one side of one page they must be huge and having them mail me one I will never use just to satisfy my curiosity seems a bit rude – they have got to be expensive.)
Bob, you are an idiot.
A referendum doesn’t change existing laws.
A referendum stops a new law from being enacted.
Voting For Ref 71 changes nothing.
Voting against Ref 71 changes everything.
The reason we need Ref 71 is to clean up a mess that our state legislature made this year. I know, politicians making mistakes, who would have thought!
I love how I didn’t have to even go into the specifics of the Bill that we are trying to stop from being passed to prove you the liar you are.
SB 5688 changed the law.
This changes it back.
It is like that “system restore” function Vista has. We are restoring it from before the hyper partisan legislature messed with it.
Ref 71 – Setting things Straight.
All it does is change things back to how it was before the bill was passed.
Nothing New. Just going back to how things were before.
I know I liked 2008 better than I like 2009.
Had a lot bigger portfolio back then.
Gosh, I wish I had an Ref. 71 for Wall Street.
Ref. 71 – Washington State’s “System Restore”.
Bob,
Your attack on the Referendum is based on a falsehood that hopes to be accepted by the process of constant repetition.
You say, “this is about special rights for some and raising money for political organizations.”
You say, “,,,any attempt to remove rights (as Referendum 71 is trying to do) ”
You say, “Referendum 71 if it were to succeed in blocking equal access to government…”
Underlying all these phrases is a lie, to wit, that traditional marriage or any laws that discriminate against homosexual behavior are discriminating against some “people. ” But the subject of R71 and marriage law is not identity; it is behavior.
The legal language put forward by Liberal (read: “constitutionally criminal”) Judges to thwart the democratic process is based on that lie. There is nothing to justify it in any Consitution, and no science to support it.
The assertion that “homosexuals” have a Constitutional right to legal acceptance of their acts is no different, as a purely legal matter, than the assertion that trespassers, pederasts, prostitutes or heroin pushers have the right to “sharing the earth,” consensual sex with minors, commerical sex transactions and the sale of intravenous poison. Each of those groups are “discriminated against by law” only insofar as they are, each, a “group” that wants to do something illegal and they can’t. “DISCRIMINATION!”
Referendum 71 is not about “special rights for some.” But you, Bob, are about the wholesale destruction of American morality by invented exemptions for select sexual perversions based on politial prevarication repeatedly recapitulated.
Paul, you should be careful who you call an idiot considering your vulnerable position in that regard. First you say to me:
“A referendum doesn’t change existing laws.
A referendum stops a new law from being enacted.”
And then you say of Bill
“SB 5688 changed the law.
This changes it back.”
In totally opposite opinions in two successive notes no less.
Again, if Referendum 71 were to succeed in thwarting the legislature’s efforts to give all citizens equal rights that is exactly the reason the court said that they would entertain another look at the situation.
I mean you guys won – no ‘marriage’ for same gender married couples. The only way you can screw that up is to give a legitimate reason for the court to change their minds – the result of a successful referendum 71 does just that.
You are such a liar Bob that I didn’t even need to go into specifics. Because you lied about the very definition of a Referendum.
You lied about what IS IS. You pointed to the sun and told us it was the moon.
That seems to be a common trait about the Left. Lie about the basics.
Well, I know what IS IS and I know what a referendum is and therefore I know what a liar you are.
On Government 101 you just got an F. A referendum doesn’t change existing law. It stops a law that has just been enacted from coming into effect.
It is really a “System Restore” to use a Windows Vista term. It restores our system back before the point the hyper partisan state legislature messed with it this year.
Doug, you seem like a bright guy so I suspect you know you are spinning straw men like mad.
Sexual orientation is not about ‘behavior’ its about what gender someone can reasonably have a spouse – there is no behavior unique to same gender couples. We already allow some citizens to license a civil contract with their male spouse just as we do some others to license it with their female spouse. This is about letting all citizens have the same right to license a contract with their spouse.
Reynolds established that DOMA could limit the contract of marriage to only those with an opposite gender spouse but that in no way implies that you can deny other citizens the same access through another contract, as the court strongly suggested to the complainants , and the California court just ruled.
As to your rants, being gay is perfectly moral and not perverse in the slightest – there is nothing gay people do that 10x or more straight people aren’t doing with their spouses all the time.
This is about all citizens having equal access with their spouse and family to the same support systems under one means or another. To say that only some with a male spouse can license any contract is indeed a special right and there is no way you can really deny that and maintain credibility.
The best solution would get the state out of the sexual orientation business at all – just let all citizens have the same right to have a male or female spouse – they will figure it out for themselves, guaranteed.
Gosh, I wish we can have a Ref 71 for a lot of things.
For the stock market. I would want to restore that system right before I lost all that money I lost.
For the car accident I just had. I would restore that system right before that car hit me and instead I would turn in a way to avoid it.
Yeah, second chances are rare indeed, but here is a chance where a mistake has been made by our politicians but we have a chance of correcting it before it does any harm. In this case we can hit system restore and restore things back before this hyper partisan state legislature messed with it.
Too bad I don’t have a Ref 71 for my stockbroker. Could really use a “system restore” there.
But at least I have one here!
Bob,
Your suggestion, that the court needs some political cover for violating their oaths of office, is instructive.
Clearly, the intent to overcome public morality by political trickery has a “sexual” preference.
They would prefer to do it as a gradual transition, lest the frog suddenly realize what is happening and jump out of the soon-to-boil pot.
You are probably correct, that any attempt by Washington Citizens to rein-in this march of death may force the hand of the majority of Lawless Criminals you now have on the Washington State Supreme Court. But it may not. They have already demonstrated an unprincipled sense of self-preservation.
The use of the term “Equal Rights” to mean “Sexual License” is not a slippery slope, it is a bottomless pit.
And, for someone like yourself, who advocates it for all of society, one is tempted to raise the humorous and barely audible warning of Willy Wonka: “oh… no… stop…”
Wouldn’t it be a great if we could have a Ref 71 for 9-11.
We restore things to the way they were right before the planes hit.
“System Restores” are rare indeed so I am very grateful we have one in this case.
Ref 71 – Go back before the partisan Politicians messed things up.
Ref 71 – for this time there is a second chance to set things right!
In life there are few second chances.
But with Ref 71 there is.
With 71 we can fix what the 2009 legislature messed up.
We can’t do that with Wall Street.
We can do that here.
Let’s party like its 2008!
You people are way to intelligent for me… but i am amazed with Mr. Doug Parish…you sir, have some powerfull argument, very articulate, and well thought off…you must be unemployed, nevertheless, you made my arguments for me, without me thinking about it..heck i am even gonna used it, to impress my ultra-liberal fat girlfriend , so thank you doug, for those wonderful lessons…hope you find job…
Bob,
You say, “…being gay is perfectly moral and not perverse in the slightest”
That is an interesting statement coming from you.
Please, for everyone, explain what you mean by the word “moral”
and give some examples of what you consider perverse.
And, for practice, I recommend reading:
California Court puts Animals, Vegetables and Robots in the Marriage Blender
Paul, a better example of empty demagoguery would be hard to find. No facts, just self-righteous posturing.
I know your ears will be deaf to this but what’s changed is our understanding of adult attraction. There is no ‘heterosexual’ or ‘homosexual’ really – that is just an observation of who someone pairs with. Really there are only androphiles and gynophiles, people attracted to men and women and with every bit of information we find its just a natural variation that some of those people are of either gender.
And the same desires in their relationships with their spouses, same benefits to them, their families and society. Again, from just a practical stand point its better for society to have as many of its adults with spouses as possible – a couple is significantly less burdensome on society as a whole than 2 single people, and that is regardless of their gender combination.
But wasted words right? Your position is based on some assumption that you can’t even begin to question, right?
So discussion of any substantive nature is probably impossible. But hope springs eternal.
I just love the hyper confidence of the Left.
Well, they may think they know what people think about this topic, but I know that this is an issue that people lie about to their Leftist friends about.
And, they don’t like being called stupid for their views either.
No, they will not tell you that. They will continue to nod their heads while you go off on your rants because they just don’t want to get into it with you.
But that’ isn’t how they really believe.
And when they vote, they will be all alone and will be able to do something about it. They will be able in such a setting to vote the way they believe.
Yeah, call everyone who disagrees with you stupid. Your friend, doesn’t want you to think him stupid so he will just nod his head.
But when he is at that ballot box without you to bully him he will vote his conscience.
And then when we stop you he will nod his head again when you talk about how this state is so full of stupid people.
Please, the dictionary definition is fine by me:
moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character
Again, there is no behavior that same gender couples do that opposite gender ones don’t also do.
Ditto with:
perverse: showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable, often in spite of the consequences
Again, it is perfectly reasonable for people to have male and female spouses – the desire to do so is built into or biology and the exact same biological mechanisms are at work regardless of the gender of the person being attracted.
And the link? Well looks like an article written for The Onion, and makes about as much sense. You didn’t reference that because you thought it made any valid point did you? Did make me lol in places so I give you that.
Doug, I want to tell you that I couldn’t disagree with you more about what you believe about Homosexuality.
But that said, I don’t want to see you imprisoned or physically harmed for your beliefs.
I know that if I don’t defend the right of you having your beliefs protected down the road there will be something I will believe that will be an unpopular belief. Perhaps I don’t like Obama’s new line of GM cars, I don’t know. But if I state such a belief and am arrested for such a belief who will defend me then if you are already gone.
For this is what Ref 71. is all about.
The only freedom at stake in Ref 71. is the freedom of those who have a moral or religious objection to the homosexual lifestyle to be able to respectfully live their lives in accordance with those beliefs.
That is the only freedom at stake here.
So, I disgree with your beliefs but I don’t disagree with you having your beliefs. I don’t want to see you fined, imprisoned, or killed for your beliefs.
But as for Bob, I don’t speak for Bob. He scares the hell out of me. It is because of this that I stand firmly at your side in support of Ref. 71.
Because if Ref. 71 doesn’t win Fascism wins. And someday, while it may not be on this issue, they will be coming after me.
The only freedom at stake in Ref 71. is the freedom of those who have a moral or religious objection to the homosexual lifestyle to be able to respectfully live their lives in accordance with those beliefs.
James if you are blind to the freedom for all citizens to have the same governmental tools to make their families the best they can be regardless of the gender of their spouse you are blind indeed.
No individual need license a domestic partnership if they don’t want to do so. They have a right to live their lives not other law-abiding citizens. To demand special rights based on a personal religious belief is so odious and unAmerican its amazing anyone can say it an recognize that is the true perversion in this tale.
Bob,
You probably are not aware of the fact that you have dodged both my questions, not being ordinarily given to thinking about morality or right and wrong.
You have served up some synonyms, but no principles.
How do we determine “right and wrong”? What standards of morality discriminate between right and wrong so that we may judge on which side homosexual acts fall? For you to assert that they are on one side or another you must have some standard.
Does “morality,” in your mind, apply to sexual acts at all? Or do you believe “there is no such thing” as right and wrong in sexual preference?
You’ll notice that I did not ask for a definition of “perverse” but for some examples of what you think fits inside the definition. You ignored the question altogether.
Let me re-direct both questions. Answer, please.
Bob,
You say, “…all citizens to have the same governmental tools to make their families the best they can …”
Homosexual unions are incapable of “families” in all the same ways that unions between humans and animals, humans and vegetables or humans and inanimate objects are incapable of “families.”
That was the point of the satire.
“Gays” can adopt, but so could human/animal partners or people whose partner is a robot.
Gays can’t even engage in actual sexual intercourse, but simulate it in various ways, as is done with the “sex toys” in the satire.
Homosexual relationships are, at best, roomates who engage in creative forms of mutual masturbation. The legal attachment of others to this relationship, in conjunction with the misapplication of the word “family” to it, is an intellectual perversion.
Reading your prose, one might conclude that you are unfamiliar with the basic facts of human reproduction.
Our standard of right and wrong? Our American principles are a good start:
Everyone has the same innate rights, so in this case if some have a right to marry men and women then we all do.
Government exists to serve the people equally, not the people the government. It is a mere intellectual construct and does what we need it to.
So the right thing for a government to do is treat all of its citizens equally, and as they all have a right to marry it should allow citizens the same access to the legal tools created to strengthen and foster their marriages. While the state has said that one contract can only be licensed by those couples of different genders, a moral government will still allow all citizens access to the same tools regardless of their spouse’s gender in some fashion. Referendum 71 tries to prevent this so it is, by definition, wrong and immoral and, as I noted in a previous note, works against society’s best interest and so is ‘perverse’.
And does morality relate to ‘sexual acts’? Sure it does any sex act that ignores the innate rights of another is by definition immoral: – rape is immoral, sex with an individual unable to reasonably consent is immoral. Again, these should be simple or are you fishing for a particular sex act like fellatio, or masturbation as being intrinsically immoral? How would that even be a moral issue to a reasonable mind as long as all participants are consensual?
[b]Homosexual unions are incapable of “families” in all the same ways that unions between humans and animals, humans vegetables or humans and inanimate objects are incapable of “families.”[/b]
Ah the ‘True Scotsman’ argumentative fallacy. Humorous.
Yes if you specifically write a definition to exclude them then to the pedantically minded I guess that is case closed. But to those who use empirical data to derive the qualities of a family the solution isn’t quite that simple.
[b]Reading your prose, one might conclude that you are unfamiliar with the basic facts of human reproduction.[/b]
More from reading yours you seem oblivious to the fact that the vast majority of sexual activity has nothing to do with human reproduction. Shoot 16% of opposite gender couples that license the contract are naturally mutually infertile, more infertile by choice, and yet they still engage in sexual activity.
If you think its all about human reproduction you are probably doing it wrong.
Bob, you scare the hell out of me.
We might agree on the issue of homosexuality but if there was ever an issue that you found you disagreed with me with then God help me, Right?
The Fight For Ref 71 is a fight against fascism.
So, what about Bob?
Well Bob, you scare the heck out of me. And yeah you and I might share the same belief about homosexuality but if you ever try to come after Doug because of his beliefs you are going to have to come through me, man!
And I am a supporter of not only the ideals of the first amendment of the US constitution but of the second amendment as well.
Enough said…
James what are your paranoid ramblings about?! I had to actual check to make sure there wasn’t some other ‘Bob’ posting.
You are scared by equal rights for all citizens? You think that allowing all citizens the ability to license the governmental tools with their spouse is somehow akin to ‘an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization’?
Huh?
‘but if you ever try to come after Doug because of his beliefs you are going to have to come through me, man!’
Again, huh?
And I am a supporter of not only the ideals of the first amendment of the US constitution but of the second amendment as well.
Enough said…
So you are threatening me with violence in response to…?
My desire for all citizens to be able to license a contract in support of them, their spouse, their families and society?
I think its my turn to be scared…
Its Doug that is coming after other people – letting each citizen do what they think is best for them is my position, Doug is the on with ‘everyone has to do it my way’ as his mantra. Again, government is a tool – domestic partnerships are only for those that want them – Doug need never be in one.
I will never forget what Pastor Martin Niemöller said, Bob.
Pastor Martin Niemöller was imprisoned by the German Nazis and he said that he waited too late to speak out. He watched and didn’t defend others that the fascists first targeted so when they finally came around to targeting him there was no one left do defend him.
Yeah, first Bob, you are going after Doug here because he doesn’t share your beliefs in regards to homosexuality.
But how long will it be before you are going to come after me because I disagree with “the party line” in some form?
I stand with Doug so when you come after me, and you will he will be able to stand with me.
Ref 71 is indeed a fight against fascism. I disagree with Doug’s belief against homosexuality but I will defend to my death Doug’s right to have have such a belief.
And you, Bob, you are the type of person my grandfather died to stop on that Longest Day so many years ago. You are the Nazi!
Bob,
I did not ask for “our” standard of right and wrong, but yours. Your tacit assertion that government documents, even good ones, define right and wrong is, itself, against “our American principles.”
No single individual in America has a right “to marry men and women” and so that fantasy cannot be universally applied to everyone. No one has, nor should have, that right.
Government should serve the legitmate interests of the People, to be sure, but it is not “an intellectual construct” and there are some things no majority ought to do.
Your assertion that “all have a right to marry” is a ridiculous construct. As I warned you, it legitimizes animal, vegetable and inanimate unions, as well as what is now generally thought of as statutory rape. You do not actually believe the principle you espouse. You give lip service to it, as a basis for legitimizing homosexuality, but as soon as we test it, beyond your (seemingly totally subjective) application, you abandon it. You are either cleverly dishonest or unconsciously irrational.
By your standard, any law that discriminates against a public school teacher marrying a boy in her sixth-grade class is “perverse.” To the contrary, your “standard” is perverse.
You say, “…as… all have a right to marry it should allow citizens the same access to the legal tools created to strengthen and foster their marriages.” I agree. But homosexual unions are not marriages, cannot become marriages, government cannot make them marriages and they can never result in “families.”
Again, you dodge the question. You simply assert that homosexuality is moral. Why? By what standard do you measure “morality”?
If you begin with the assumption that homosexuality is “equal” to natural sexuality and that “equality” is a moral principle, then you will reliably reason to the conclusion that homosexuality is “moral.” But we can do exactly the same thing with man/boy “love” relationships as long as they are “consensual.” Who are you to arbitrarily remove the right to consent from anyone. That is not treating them as “equal!”
That, by your standard, is “perverse.”
The only freedom at stake in Ref 71. is the freedom of those who have a moral or religious objection to the homosexual lifestyle to be able to respectfully live their lives in accordance with those beliefs.
That is the only freedom at stake here.
That is the freedom Bob is trying to take away.
Yeah, first Bob, you are going after Doug here because he doesn’t share your beliefs in regards to homosexuality.
G-o-i-n-g a-f-t-e-r h-i-m.
By that you mean disagreeing with him? Daring to express that I think he has a wrong opinion and telling him why? Standing up to his bullying and his attempt to deny other citizens equal rights?
I disagree with Doug’s belief against homosexuality but I will defend to my death Doug’s right to have have such a belief.
Ok again, who said he doesn’t have a right to his beliefs? Not me though I do believe that the government is supposed to support everyone equally regardless of their beliefs especially beliefs that none can require others to share.
Think of it this way:
If there were people that ‘believed’ only same gender couples could marry, and
If there were people that ‘beleived’ only opposite gender couples could marry
A moral American government true to its principles would allow all genders to marry and let the individuals be true to their own beliefs.
Again, it is Doug that is demanding special rights for some.
And now that you’ve used them again I can honestly state I don’t think you know what the words ‘fascism’ and ‘Nazi’ mean in the consensus reality we all share. What do these words mean to you?
No single individual in America has a right “to marry men and women” and so that fantasy cannot be universally applied to everyone. No one has, nor should have, that right.
We are all equal citizens, we all have that right if any of us has that right.
As I warned you, it legitimizes animal, vegetable and inanimate unions, as well as what is now generally thought of as statutory rape.
Oh only to the specious. We as human beings are naturally attracted to gender, some male, some female, a some both, some neither. Androphiles and gynophiles and there are members of both genders in each of these groups. Recognizing this fact that most people can only reasonably marry a particular gender in no way opens any doors to animals, or the rest of your ridiculous laundry list. And when someone post puberty is old enough to be married is cultural – Biblically it was 12 for females and 13 for males. Things can be illegal in a society without also being immoral so your example of the teacher and a sixth grader is prohibited by law – we do that because we feel the sixth grader is not yet ready to make those kinds of decisions. We limit many rights until such a time as we deem the individual capable of self-determination.
You use such simple-to-dissemble straw men several times – and its obvious you are bright enough to know that you are doing it. You might try honest discussion if you expect to be taken seriously.
You simply assert that homosexuality is moral. Why? By what standard do you measure “morality”?
Reading comprehension – I posted the definition of morality and it talked about ‘behavior’: since there is no homosexual behavior (they literally can do nothing that heterosexuals don’t also do) it can’t be immoral in and of itself. Is it ‘right or wrong’? Since it is just an natural expression of natural biological drives that exists legally within our society it isn’t ‘wrong’ any more than being left-handed is wrong. Again the more we learn about social biological systems the more we realize that uniformity is a negative for a society – they thrive where there is natural variation. So by law, science, and just common sense there is nothing immoral or wrong about a citizen of any gender having a spouse of a particular gender. And since they do and we have a government here to serve equally, if some are allowed to license a contract with their male spouse than all should have the same option – its just the moral, ethical, and common sense thing to do.
It was exactly this attitude that my Grandfather died fighting against in WWII.
There used to be a popular saying “I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It was as a fundamental belief that people were entitled to their beliefs free of government persecution.
But Hitler, but Stalin, But Bob, they don’t believe that. They belief that you should be punished for your beliefs. You should be fined for your beliefs, and yes even killed for your beliefs.
That is why Bob, I don’t care that we share the same beliefs regarding homosexuality and that I am in 100 percent opposition to Doug about his beliefs regarding homosexuality.
In the tradition of my grandfather, I stand with Doug, and against you. Because, this isn’t a battle against homosexuality. This is a battle against fascism! This is a battle against Big Bob telling us what we are and are not allowed to believe.
The only freedom at stake in Ref 71. is the freedom of those who have a moral or religious objection to the homosexual lifestyle to be able to respectfully live their lives in accordance with those beliefs.
That is the only freedom at stake here. But oh what an important freedom. A freedom to not have your beliefs dictated by Hitler, Stalin, Big Bob, or any other fascist that may happen along trying to do so.
So, yes, in the Spirit of Niemöller, in the spirit of Voltaire, in the Spirit of my Grandfather, I join with Doug in the spirit of 71 and against people like you. For while we might agree on the issue of homosexuality I am quiet sure that on a whole range of issues we have differences in belief that you belief I should go to the gulag for!
But Bob, they don’t believe that. They belief that you should be punished for your beliefs. You should be fined for your beliefs, and yes even killed for your beliefs.
Are you insane? Who (other than you) has talked of ‘punishing’ anyone because of their beliefs? I mean Doug is the only one trying to rationalize denying citizens equal rights.
respectfully live their lives in accordance with those beliefs.
As long as they don’t force everyone to pretend they share those beliefs, or say the government should only reflect their beliefs and ignore others I agree.
Again, the Nazi’s were all about forcing everyone to toe their party line whether they shared it or not – that’s what Doug is doing. I fully support Doug’s right and ability to marry his spouse regardless of their gender.
Again, I am beginning to seriously think you are a sockpuppet – your ‘outrage’ makes no sense.
My Grandfather died to defeat you.
I will not let you win.
People have the right to believe differently about homosexuality than you and I do.
And I am not going to let you take that right away.
Paul caught you lying at the start about what referendums are. But you keep on with your lies.
I agree with Paul. The politicians made a mistake (that’s the nice way of saying it), in their zealous pursuit of partisanship this spring. Thank God we have Ref 71 as a do over.
And, yeah, I wish I could have a do over with my stock broker as well.
Second Chances don’t come often. When they do come one really needs to grab hold of them.
People have the right to believe differently about homosexuality than you and I do.
Of course they do. Who (again, other than you) implied they didn’t?
Paul caught you lying at the start about what referendums are. But you keep on with your lies.
No, you should re-read I never even said what a referendum was (though I know) It was Paul that chastised me implying that they didn’t change anything, taking the stance that the law doesn’t exist until after the referendum and then in the very next next note tells someone they are a reset switch that changes something back implying that the change HAD occurred.
FYI: just because a logically challenged individual calls someone a ‘liar’ doesn’t make it true. I didn’t bother to respond because Paul’s claims are so irrational there isn’t much to refute – or point.
Thank God we have Ref 71 as a do over.
What do you think it does? It removes a few of the rights of the domestic partnership legislation. Domestic Partnerships will still exist with most of the important features intact and it opens the door to a successful Supreme Court challenge against DOMA. A successful Referendum 71 pretty much a shot in the foot for those against marriage equality.
But I am getting the sockpuppet vibe again – you do what you think is best – talk with Paul if that makes you feel better.
You just won’t admit that the politicians could ever just make a mistake.
They are the Enlightened Ones right?
Well I know they thought that way in Germany, but that isn’t how we think here.
At least we didn’t used to.
Thank God I do live in a country where if the politicians make a mistake the people themselves can come in to make it right.
That’s the spirit of 71. That’s the spirit my grandfather died to protect.
“A successful Referendum 71 pretty much a shot in the foot for those against marriage equality.”
If that was indeed the case then you would be all for it considering that you you want.
It is a very bad idea to take “advice” from your enemy. Typically they don’t have your best interest at heart.
James, first fascists like Bob are going to try to take out the First Amendment through their opposition of Ref 71.
We all know what the next amendment they are eying if they defeat the spirit of 71.
If that was indeed the case then you would be all for it considering that you you want.
that is what I want? Of course one contract for all marriage would be the sensible solution but 2 contracts with the same features is fine – they will merge some day by an act of the legislature.
It is a very bad idea to take “advice” from your enemy. Typically they don’t have your best interest at heart.
But we aren’t enemies – we are all just Americans that disagree. I don’t enjoy watching you hurt yourselves, watch you out of a neurotic paranoia dismantle the principles that make this country and state great.
I would try and stop anyone from shooting themselves in the foot especially when there’s no guarantee they will only harm themselves.
No, we are not merely “in disagreement”.
You are attacking us.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Eakman/beverly43.htm
The big lie is that we aren’t enemies.
For years conservatives believed we weren’t enemies.
They were WRONG.
We are not “just Americans who disagree”. That was the mistake we made for thinking so.
This was different indeed.
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002gcS
“We were under attack, whereas we thought we were merely under disagreement. We said we just needed to understand each other. The truth was, our adversaries understood us better than we knew.”
Where exactly in that ‘pity party’ of an article is the ‘attack’ on anyone?
A more recent discussion on this topic is here.
http://thereaganwing.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/revolution/
We thought (well not me I wasn’t alive at the start of the culture war) this was another case of “Americans disagreeing” which of course is typical and indeed necessary in any republic. But that wasn’t the case this time. We weren’t merely in disagreement. It was revolution you had in mind (yeah I know you probably wasn’t alive at the start of this war either).
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/revolution.html
We weren’t “all just Americans that disagree” as you put it or just “in disagreement” to use BK Eakman’s terms.
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002gcS
We were debating “Operating Systems” (as Herbert E. Meyer put it in his recent article).
You are indeed my enemy.
I recognize it.
The sad thing is I don’t know how many other conservatives recognize this very key difference. And if even if they do if we all recognize it a bit too late.
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002gcS
“We were under attack, whereas we thought we were merely under disagreement. We said we just needed to understand each other. The truth was, our adversaries understood us better than we knew.”
Well for those that think this isn’t a free pluralistic society I can see how it looks like a war every time they can’t restrict others.
You are free to practice your religion – the US is said to have the most varied religious nature of all nations on earth. Of course that does mean we have to agree that everyone that isn’t you has a right to NOT practice your relgion, and that the government and its institutions that are for everyone should be religion ‘agnostic’ so that it doesn’t bias towards one or the other.
You don’t think same gender couples can marry? Heck the Catholics don’t think civilly divorced people can remarry, and some religions do think both can happen – all are rights protected by the first amendment, but the government still has to accommodate everyone in spite of any one person’s religion.
You are the ones who want to oppress others, you are the ones with the strongest religious freedoms on the planet but your real complaint is you can’t force everyone to pretend yours is the only religion.
Religious zealots can’t avoid becoming unAmerican in their natures its seems.
This is going to be so fun.
People like you can’t stop from letting your anti-Christian hatred come out.
But the truth is that this State is primarily Christian.
Too bad that the Republican Left has such a stranglehold on the state party. This could have really been something that could have reinvigorated the party.
But of course by how the Republican Left will force them to play this we are probably looking at the end of the Washington State GOP.
But for all those Leftists jumping for glee this just means that there will be a void, a hunger out there for something to take them on. Perhaps Washington State will be where a new political party will be born.
After all, with all the average people that Leftists like Bob are going to alienate with their Christian bashing in the next several months, they are all going to have to go somewhere.
People like you can’t stop from letting your anti-Christian hatred come out.
You mean your unChristian hatred out, right?
But the truth is that this State is primarily Christian.
And most Christians support equal rights for all citizens in this regard. I bet you think you are a Christian, don’t you?
After all, with all the average people that Leftists like Bob are going to alienate with their Christian bashing in the next several months, they are all going to have to go somewhere.
Yes yes, we’ve all heard the faux ‘they’re picking on me’ whine of you guys before. Fortunately most Christians are very embarrassed by you – your self-righteous self-importance identifies you as merely Christianists – people who in the name of Christ do the Devil’s work.
Have fun.
Bob,
READING COMPREHENSION??
You ain’t got no steenkeen readeen comprehension.
First, you quote me: “No single individual in America has a right ‘to marry men and women’ and so that fantasy cannot be universally applied to everyone.”
Then you say, “We are all equal citizens, we all have that right if any of us has that right.” This is a non-sequitur.
Let me repeat it, more slowly this time, to help you:
N-o…o-n-e…h-a-s… t-h-a-t… r-i-g-h-t… so, even applying your shallow, inconsistent platitude as if it were “morality” we don’t arrive at the conclusion that we “all have that right.” Learn to read.
You say, “We as human beings are naturally attracted to gender, some male, some female, some both, some neither.”
First, of course, it must be pointed out that no one is “naturally” attracted to his or her own sex, any more than they are “naturally” attracted to shooting up heroin. Many people acquire the attraction, many involuntarily, but your assertion that it is “natural” is based on nothing more than the imposition of your philosopical position on your concept of reality. Your denial of the very existence of objective reality is your personally-autographed permission slip for this.
But, next, we need to show that you are applying your own discrimination, here. There is no question that, in addition to sexual preferences for “male” and/or “female,” there are sexual preferences for beasts (to enumerate just one of many real alternative preferences). It’s called beastiality. There are others. So if the simple existence of a preference is its own justification, those things are, by your standards, not simply “moral” (as you assert them to be if they are consensual), they are also “civil rights” according to your “principles.” If you had any principles.
You say, “… most people can only reasonably marry a particular gender…” You’re right, it’s the opposite sex. And no one can “only reasonably marry” the same sex. “Homosexuality,” as a proclivity, is real, but not “natural,” not genetic, not a part of anyone’s human make-up and always repairable. That innumerable ex-gays, liberated from that bondage, prove this proposition is the reason they are stalked by Gay radicals, threatened, villified, and treated with extreme hate. We know who the bigots are.
You reference my “ridiculous laundry list” of sexual proclivities. But it is not my list, it is yours. It is the logical conclusion of your ridiculous “principle.” You know, Bob, the “equality” you don’t actually believe in.
“You use… simple-to-dissemble straw men…” Well, Bob, they’re not staw men, they are the antecedents of your arguments. And you haven’t “dissassembled” any of them. Although you “dissemble” frequently. What you’re best at doing is applying labels to arguments you refuse to answer; “Bullying,” “specious, ” “neurotic paranoia,” “ridiculous,” “straw men, ” “Religious zealots, ” “sockpuppet.” You have no arguments you have epithets.
You say, “…there is no homosexual behavior…” Right. And then you presume to give ME advice on credibility.
You say, “So by law, science, and just common sense there is nothing immoral or wrong about a citizen of any gender having a spouse of a particular gender.”
Every part of that statement is a lie. If there were no law you would not be changing the laws. If there was any science that supported the deconstruction of sexual reproduction you would have found it by now. And it is “common sense,” more than anything else, that is your enemy. Show me, in the thousands of years of recorded history, the successful civilization based on gay marriage.
The conscience screams. You plug your ears.
The evidence is clear. But you prefer a “consensus reality” a cosmos of your mind, the product of your psychic negotiation.
Bob Vander Plaats on Marriage
This is must-listen-to audio for those who care about God’s design for the family, as well as Constitutional Rule of Law.
Iowan GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats makes the case that it’s time to stand up to the courts and for the will of the people.
http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/DESMOINES-IA/WHO-AM/VanderPlatts%20Niche%20Family%20Speech.mp3
Norm Johnson and Curtis King – Yakima’s own – RINO COWBOYS
(rawhide music)
CHORUS
Move ‘em on, head ‘em up
Head ‘em up, move ‘em on
Move ‘em on, head ‘em up
RINO
Count ‘em out, ride ‘em in,
Ride ‘em in, count ‘em out,
Count ‘em out, ride ‘em in
RINO
Oh, those Yakima Republicans. Behave.
We were discussing how we lost the culture war last night.
I found two very important articles (actually one article two parts) regarding this).
http://www.newswithviews.com/Eakman/beverly36.htm
Here is today’s Republican leadership sounding more like the liberals of my Baby-Boomer youth, while the self-described liberals are now open socialists, spouting the same twisted logic as Karl Marx. As Wesley Pruden, editor-in-chief of the Washington Times, aptly observed in his January 6th column “Looking for virtue in a wrong place:” “Big government and insensate spending, which were high crimes and misdemeanors when the Democrats did it, suddenly became Republican virtues.”
http://www.newswithviews.com/Eakman/beverly37.htm
We should have drawn a line in the sand during the hippie movement of the 1970s, a phase that most of us thought would fizzle. Instead it morphed. Had our side quickly bought up media outlets, launched new television and radio stations en masse, funded newspapers in every city, created alternative schools and franchised them, launched class-action lawsuits to stem the dissemination of filth, made pariahs of organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, and insisted on laws reigning in the fledgling computer technologies, we might have stemmed the political tsunami. Had we told the environmental extremists where to get off, beginning back when they were first protecting bugs over humans, we might still have trash cans in our parks instead of being forced to carry doggie droppings and empty paper plates from concession stands in baggies on our belt.
But we chose to spend the money on election campaigns and Republican Senatorial Committees, even though we had no press to disseminate our message, and no school system to reinforce our values.
Sorry to have gone off topic like that for a moment but what “Bob said” really got to me last night. Perhaps for most reading it, they didn’t grab the significance but to me, someone who has looked into “why we lost” I saw the significance immediately.
He said “But we aren’t enemies – we are all just Americans that disagree. ”
Immediately I thought of what Beverly Eakman said in her 1999 Washington Times article “How we lost the culture wars”. And a key reason, as she put it in her article was indeed, “we were under attack, whereas we thought we were merely under disagreement. We said we just needed to understand each other. The truth was, our adversaries understood us better than we knew.”
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002gcS
“…We were under attack, whereas we thought we were merely under disagreement. We said we just needed to understand each other. The truth was, our adversaries understood us better than we knew”. These words explain it all so, when Bob said “But we aren’t enemies – we are all just Americans that disagree. ” those words flooded back to me. Here was a Leftist actually using this so fundamental tactic.
I hope we have all as conservatives gotten past this most fundamental of lies.
By the way this was just so timely because Doug had quite recently posted a recent article by Herbert E. Meyer that had discussed this issue as well.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/revolution.html
Bob you say “but we aren’t enemies – we are all just Americans that disagree”. I say you are a liar. I say that you have just stated the most fundamental of your lies, the lie that allowed all your other lies to have the success they had.
Make no mistake, Bob is my enemy. Bob is your enemy. After all that has happened since the 1960s to now how can that even be up for debate any more? If you weren’t my enemy, Bob you would have never voted for Obama. No person honestly calling himself or herself an American would do so. Only someone who wants to harm his fellow citizen would. Only someone who wants to change the “operating system” would. So, no, you and I are enemies. And any conservative who can’t recognize Bob for the enemy I have no respect for.
Oh, here is another excellent Eakman article.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Eakman/beverly150.htm
From the article:
Without apparently realizing it, conservatives have moved toward socialistic, globalist positions, which if they stopped to re-read their earlier pledges, they would never support.
Norm Johnson and Curtis King – Yakima’s own – RINO COWBOYS
Get along little dogies, get along..
Iowan talk show host Steve Deace provides his comments on the stirring speech given by Iowan GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats.
Bob Vander Plaats’s Speech.
Oh, the speech was on Gay Marriage and the courts.
This makes me sick! The fact that the gay/lesbian lifestyle would be taught in school–is completely FAKE! Your sexual orientation, is completely up to you, and therefore, wouldn’t be taught in school EVER! It’s like trying to incorputate religion in school.
Someone who care…. of course, it is taught in the schools. My son graduated recently from high school. I was very involved in the school system. As a result, I do claim some knowledge from direct experience. What is taught is that all sexual orientations and sexual choices are “normal” and good. Teaching is by modeling of behavior, through text, through posters, through homework assignments, sex ed courses and through policy-making. One can have a GLT group on school campuses but not a Heterosexual group. I call that discrimination. That’s also teaching. One teaches by other means than standing in front of a classroom.
“I am quite indifferent and unaffected by the gay/stright-DOMA/gay marriage-adoption conversation. I just don’t get it. I just don’t understand why so many people are threatened (on both sides) by these issues.”
FOR KEVIN – if you want to see how LGBT lives are seriously threatened and how heterosexual lives are NOT threatened in any way, shape, or form, go here:
http://gaytaxprotest.blogspot.com/2009/02/cruel-suffering-due-to-marriage.html
Re: “FOR KEVIN”:
If you want to see how the above poster, himself, (John Bisceglia) a gay activist, seriously and directly threatens the lives of heterosexuals with violence, in his own words, go here:
http://thereaganwing.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/preserve-marriage-sign-referendum-71/#comment-14477
This entire page is full of bigotry wrapped in bronze age mysticism. The group of people who want “special rights” in this country is the extremist christian fringe (as seen above). They the special right to cram their religion down the throats of other americans. They want the special right to making baseless judgments about an entire class of american of which they have little understanding.
You will all be defeated and history will look at you as the Governor Wallaces of the day!
Al,
Your ignorance is only exceeded by your prejudice.
The “christian fringe” you speak of is the faction of the world’s population that INVENTED the protections of speech and religion embodied in the First Amendment.
Your mindless assumption that any special interest group (that decides to claim it) deserves the protection of law is laughable.
No, Al, theives do not deserve protection of their theft.
No, Al, child rapists do not deserve protection of their sexual perversion, even though they are “AN ENTIRE CLASS OF AMERICANS.”
And no, Al, there are no “baseless judgments” involved, no bigotry involved, except your own and “the lack of understanding” is yours, as well. You have no idea what motivates conservatives nor Christians, ideologically or otherwise and no interest in finding out.
You slander your opponents because it is the only way you can advance your cause.
But, since your particular political faction is advancing its objectives by the use of public education as a political indoctrination tool, in full violation of the First Amendment, and doing so quite successfully, and since capitulation to your objectives is part of the modus operandi of the current corrupt leadership of the Republican Party (not all of it, but the significant controlling faction), I find it credible that you will, in fact, enjoy a victory. That victory already rules San Francisco where nude sexual obscenity is accepted on public streets in full view of children.
But we will not be known as the “George Wallaces” in any ostensible future. We will, in that instance, be known as we always have been in such circumstances.
John the Baptist was just such an instance. He made exactly the same kind of “baseless judgment” about the sexual conduct of Herod. It outraged your equivalent of that time. His criticism, his failure to accept evil as good publically, cost him his head.
And should your faction, the faction of hatred and perversion, become ascendent (for a time) in what was once America, we will, in the hypothetical history of that hypothetical future when it, hypothetically becomes past, be known as “martyrs.”
Two of the three legislators in Yakima voted FOR the bill this Referendum is trying to repeal.
Both of them… Republicans.
The RINO Cowboys going Brokeback on Yakima.
I bet there are conservatives out there, living in Yakima, so proud of themselves that their three state legislators are Republicans. Those damn people West of the Mountain they think. At least I do my part by electing Republicans.
In my book that makes them LAZY CONSERVATIVES. It’s not enough for them to elect Republicans, they must elect conservatives, and this they obviously failed to do! And they need to elect FIGHTING conservatives not passive ones.
A Conservative in Yakima who helps elect a RINO is even more contemptible than someone who does so here West of the mountains because it should be easier to elect a conservative there so these seats are going to waste!
From what Paul posted.
Norm Johnson and Curtis King – Yakima’s own – RINO COWBOYS
(rawhide music)
CHORUS
Move ‘em on, head ‘em up
Head ‘em up, move ‘em on
Move ‘em on, head ‘em up
RINO
Count ‘em out, ride ‘em in,
Ride ‘em in, count ‘em out,
Count ‘em out, ride ‘em in
RINO
Oh, those Yakima Republicans. Behave.
Just because a Legislator is an Eastern Washington Republican it doesn’t make that legislator a conservative.
Don’t have to look any further than the RINO Cowboys.
Also you have Walla Walla Walsh, State Rep. Maureen Walsh of Walla Walla.
Not only did Maureen Walsh and Norm Johnson vote FOR the final legislation, they COSPONSORED the House version of the bill.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum_71_(2009)
http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/osos/en/initiativesReferenda/Pages/R-71SignatureStats.aspx
http://referendum71.blogspot.com/
By the way, Doug, the San Francisco Street fair that you kind of referred to is on on Sunday, September 27, 2009 from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
It’s known as the Folsom Street Fair and if you type those words into Google Image you will be sickened at the images you will find.
Thanks for the warning, Steve! I’ll be sure not to do that!
Referendum 71 Qualifies for November Ballot!
http://www.fpiw.org/ref71
In breaking news, the Secretary of State’s office has confirmed that Referendum 71 has surpassed the 120,577 signature threshold necessary to qualify for the November ballot.
Joseph Backholm, executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington said that there are a lot of people who deserve credit for this effort. “This is very encouraging news for the thousands of people in Washington State who worked very hard against unprecedented odds to get Referendum 71 on the ballot.” But he warned that the fight is far from over.
“Getting on the ballot was the easy part. Now we have to make sure that the public understand that this debate is not about being mean or nice, intolerant or intolerant. The public needs to understand that this legislation is a very real threat to religious liberty–our first freedom. And it will also add significant financial liabilities to the state of Washington, which we can ill afford.”
This issue will be decided when votes are cast on November 3rd.
http://blogs.secstate.wa.gov/FromOurCorner/index.php/2009/08/update-r-71-headed-to-november-statewide-ballot/
by David Ammons | August 31st, 2009
Unofficial and incomplete figures from the state Elections Division shows Referendum 71 with sufficient signatures to make the Nov. 3 General Election ballot in Washington. It could be the narrowest margin ever for qualifying for the ballot.
Sponsors, a campaign group called Protect Marriage Washington, submitted nearly 138,000 signatures on July 25, needing 120,577 to secure a ballot spot. As of Monday evening, after all signatures were checked, state checkers accepted 121,617 signatures — a pad of 1,040 signatures.
That number could rise a bit as the final checks are done to see if some initially rejected signatures of people not found on the voter database will turn up on a fresher version.
Sponsors hope to overturn Senate Bill 5688, which passed the Legislature in April, expanding the state rights and responsibilities of state-registered domestic partners. Voters will have the choice of affirming the legislation or rejecting it.
The checkers have rejected 16,264 signatures, but some may be moved over to the accepted pile after new voter registrations are located and after county election offices supply missing electronic voter signatures. The rejected signatures include 12,710 not found on the voter database, 66 awaiting an electronic signature from their home county, 1,395 where the signature doesn’t match the one on file, and 2,093 duplicate signatures.
Overall, the error rate is running 11.8 percent, somewhat lower than the maximum 12.4 percent the sponsors could withstand. Historically, the average error rate has been 18.5 percent during the past 20 years.
The update came as challengers went to court in King County to try to block the measure from the ballot. Superior Court Judge Julie Spector took the case under advisement and said she will rule on Wednesday morning.
http://www.kirotv.com/politics/20687502/detail.html
SEATTLE — King County Judge Julie Spector has denied a temporary restraining order to keep R-71 off the November ballot.
The gay rights organization Washington Families Standing Together had sought the restraining order, claiming that the Secretary of State had improperly accepted thousands of illegal signatures on the referendum petition.
Judge Spector ruled that her court “had no authority to prevent the Secretary of State from accepting these petitions in light of their questionable validity.”
Read the judge’s ruling.
http://www.kirotv.com/download/2009/0902/20687730.pdf
She wrote that “Only after certification can opponents of a referendum challenge it in court.”
Judge Spector said any challenge of the certification of the referendum must be brought in Thurston County Superior Court within five days after certification.
Secretary of State Sam Reed was scheduled to certify R-71 this morning.
Thanks for the warning, Steve! I’ll be sure not to do that!
Actually there is two perspectives to that.
It is kind of like images of the Holocaust. Some believe that people need to see that stuff since the Holocaust really did happen. Not seeing the photos, not seeing the videos mean one will never understand the full horror of what happened back then.
Same goes with 9-11. Many were very critical of the news media not showing the real ugly stuff because they believed we needed to know the full horror of the situation.
So, yeah, vidoes of and pictures of the Folsom Street Fair are some of the most disgusting things you will ever see if you choose to see them. But then again perhaps it is time for people to see homosexuality in “it’s full glory” so that they will be disgusted. Perhaps by only seeing it for themselves they will understand it isn’t like it’s advocates try to portray it as being.
Up to you. I understand both perspectives and I haven’t fully decided yet which one I agree with.
http://images.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi
http://www.flickr.com
The real disturbing thing is that you can see children in the audience of some of these photos At least that was the case two years ago. Perhaps they are more careful this year.
Folsom Street Fair is where the homosexual community is leading us into. Sooner or later it’s coming to a street near you.
Knights of Columbus endorse Ref. 71
http://www.protectmarriagewa.com/index.php/endorsements/26-organizations/129-knights-of-columbus-endorse-ref-71
Are there any other groups that you’d like to discriminate against while you’re at it? Perhaps it’s time to take rights back away from women and blacks while you’re at it. If your marriage is so weak that seeing two people of the same gender share them will destroy it, then maybe you are the ones that should have the right stolen from you. You are ignorant sheep and America is weaker because of you.
Other groups we’d discriminate against? Of course!
Thieves
Rapists
Murderers (without dicrimination, the killers of all age groups, born and unborn)
Embezzlers
Ballot cheaters
Monopolists
Contract breakers
Necromancers
Pederasts
Pedophiles
People named “Ben” (just kidding).
No one can take rights away. They do not come from government but God. You can violate them, however. The gay marriage by euphemism bill assaults the rights of innocent children who will increasingly become the victims of same-sex couples playing “house” and taking the children from their rightful families.
All children have a father and a mother. You work to dismember reality.
America weaker? We became the strongest nation on earth following the morality you hate and our postion is falling like a stone under the gay rights President you elected. Our government is bankrupt and targeting every industry it can for the same fate by spreading its marxism. Depression II unleashed by another collectivist President.
This will end in both war and poverty.
You want to unleash the same evil atheist statist ideology on innocent children.
The gay marriage by euphemism bill assaults the rights of innocent children who will increasingly become the victims of same-sex couples playing “house” and taking the children from their rightful families.
All children have a father and a mother. You work to dismember reality.
So then you’re firmly against adoption and remarriage, I see! And since there are plenty of straight couples that abuse and neglect their children, you probably should be against straight marriage too, right?
You see nothing! You are willfully blinded by your rejection of the truth.
Adoption is the commitment to heal a family, as when a natural olive branch is grafted to a real olive tree. The responsibility of the administrator of such a union inherits responsibility to know the tree and the branch.
The phrase “straight marriage” is like saying “straight water” to distinguish it from alcohol. The word “straight” is not necessary. Alcohol is not “gay water.” You can tell real water from alcohol by the taste. Labeling one, which is flammable, as the other, which can extinguish fire, is fraud.
No number of cases of drowning by water (thus proving it unsafe) can justify labeling alcohol as water. Alcohol cannot become water by a legislature labeling it as the same thing as water.
That has to be the weirdest — and worst! — analogy I’ve ever read. It might even exceed your nuclear fusion example in pure silliness!
Your argument, then, points to the idea that gay parents are bad simply because they are gay. Adoption administrators should “inherits responsibility to know the tree and the branch”, but that being gay somehow violates that.
So, then, why is that relevant for children? To me, it comes down to three possible points: 1.) you believe that all children must have a male and female role-model in the house, 2.) you’re afraid that children will be “taught homosexuality”, or 3.) you believe that a couple should have marital relations in front of their children.
If the first is the case, should the state take custody of all children in single-parent homes? Homes where one parent or the other is absent, like families of active military personnel? What if a relative of the same sex comes to help take care of the children? Would that be reason enough to take the children away?
If the second is the case, why stop at homosexuality? Aside from the fact that children of gay parents are no more likely to be gay than children of straight parents, this is baseless. If you’re essentially using the power of the state to control what children learn, why not, say, take children away from liberals? Vegetarians? Smokers? Christian Scientists? If homosexual relations are not a crime in the state, I’m wondering how you see that a child is simply endangered because their parents may believe something.
Finally, I’m guessing that both you and I believe that the third is not the case, since that would amount to child abuse, whether the parents are gay OR straight. However, what other way can you distinguish a gay household from a straight household?
“That has to be the weirdest — and worst! — analogy I’ve ever read. It might even exceed your nuclear fusion example in pure silliness!”
You had no sense for the nuclear fusion blueprint because you are clueless with regard to the inner workings of the Republican Party. You don’t understand parables because it is not given for you to understand the things of the kingdom; that seeing you might not see, and hearing you might not understand. You have no idea about marriage because you have rejected sexual morality. As a liberal, you have overthrown the source of morality (and inalienable rights) and seek, instead, to become your own source of your own standards. That is why the complete domination of a nation by those with statist ideology inevitably leads to the imprisonment of political dissidents, torture and genocide. That system has no moral limits but those it invents for itself.
“Your argument, then, points to…”
It is not an argument. I have no illusions about convincing the blind of the visible world. It’s like trying to convince a dog to speak. No amount of explanation will suffice. You cannot execute challenging dance moves until you can at least walk and you can’t walk before you learn to crawl. You must re-enter the world of objective reality before you can master its finer points. I simply intend to free your intended victims from the confusion you spread. I’m talking to those of your readers who are not yet inoculated against the truth as you are.
“…the idea that gay parents are bad simply because they are gay.”
They are not parents at all. See: Alien Relations
“Adoption administrators should “inherits[sic] responsibility to know the tree and the branch”, but that being gay somehow violates that.”
Now you’re getting it. Being drunk makes you unqualified to be a driver. Being sexually incapacitated makes you unqualified to be married.
“… three possible points: 1.) you believe that all children must have a male and female role-model in the house.”
Your vision of marriage is almost unbelievably shallow. You think it is two individuals living in the same house, each providing a sexual object for the other. Actual marriage is a melding together of a man and a woman into a single unit, each supplying parts of that union that, on much more than a sexual level, bring psychological, emotional and spiritual elements to the union that the other cannot provide. It is not only the sexual organs that were made for each other, but an entire spectrum of attributes of gender, virtually all of which the morally reprobate cannot even discern. Children need parents. Parents come in couples made for each other as your top teeth were made for the bottom. “Role models” are simply observed. They can be Presidents or pop stars, but parents are not what they are simply because they are observed in the third person, but because they provide for the child’s needs, interrelating with unique assets magnified within the marriage relationship.
“2.) you’re afraid that children will be “taught homosexuality”
Well, of course, it must be assumed that the children will be taught the lie that homosexuality is an acceptable life style. That, in itself, is abuse. But, beyond that, it must be assumed that, since to be a “gay spouse” one must commit oneself to a long-term relationship based on mutual exploitation and sexual perversion completely disregarding not only ones own spiritual good, but that of the “partner” in an act of destruction masquerading as “love,” the conscience of each partner must, therefore, always be in a serious state of disrepair. Not only can such a “couple” not provide for the spiritual and emotional/psychological needs of the child (of others they’ve acquired by some means), their moral intransigence will inevitably influence the child in general immorality that has nothing to do with sex. Anyone familiar with families, who has observed children and parents, knows that children pick up enormous attributes from their parents, even if the parents do not formally “teach” those things. Welfare families, for example, beget welfare lifestyles (usually based on sexual promiscuity and fatherlessness), and become dependable Democrat dependents locked in permanent poverty.
“or 3.) you believe that a couple should have marital relations in front of their children.”
Absurd.
“… should the state take custody of all children in single-parent homes?”
Of course not. Single parent homes have at least one surviving parent. “Absent parents” are still parents. A father in Iraq is better than two queens in the sack.
“What if a relative of the same sex comes to help take care of the children? Would that be reason enough to take the children away?”Of course not, why should it?
“… children of gay parents are no more likely to be gay than children of straight parents…”
That is a ridiculous assertion. As already noted, they will be taught that “gay is Okay.” Children tempted to that perversion will have one less tool to defend themselves from it.
“If you’re essentially using the power of the state to control what children learn, why not, say, take children away from liberals?”
All public education is the power of the State controlling what children learn. See: Jed Brown
1. If we cannot wrest that control from government, we should, at least, restrict the classroom to academic instruction.
2. No one is talking about “taking children away” from anyone. “Gay” couples have no children to take unless they have first taken children from some other source.
“If homosexual relations are not a crime in the state, I’m wondering how you see that a child is simply endangered because their parents may believe something.”
Whether or not something is dangerous does not depend on whether or not it is legal. Legalizing heroin will not make it safe. Labeling homosexual liaisons “marriage” will not make them healthy nor protect children from the ill effects of being without parents.
“… both you and I believe that the third [parents having sex in front of the children] is not the case, since that would amount to child abuse, whether the parents are gay OR straight.”
I’m not sure how, given your amoral view of sex, you come to that conclusion logically. It’s like a reversion to a morality you have previously abandoned to become a liberal. Perhaps accepting “open sexuality” is just one step too liberal for your current state of deterioration. You are still, in this last point, “imposing your personal beliefs” on others. As you progress into progressiveness you will find that sex requires no privacy or commitment and has no “morality,” that it is no different than eating food, that nudity is “mature,” and that “protecting” children from sexual knowledge and experience is backward-thinking imposition of religious superstition. Go on. Progress into that darkness. Tear down all morality. Depression, Disease, Despair and Death await you. Why wait?
“… what other way can you distinguish a gay household from a straight household?”
A “household” is people living together under one roof. A “gay” household includes two or more people of the same sex engaging in mutual sexual activity. No more.
A natural “family” is a husband and wife and any children their union produces. A “marriage” is such a family based on the mutual unilateral commitment of each parent to the other, exclusively, for life, under God, contingent on no circumstance except sexual fidelity, from which actual love and the basis of all culture grows.
Priceless. Folks like you need to lie to promote your position on R-71. This referendum will NOT result in domestic partnerships being called marriage, says NOTHING about schools and sex ed, and WILL NOT affect straight couples in any way (aside from elderly couples in domestic partnerships if it does not pass). You’re the one looking to judge people under the law based on their beliefs, not me. You tell other people that you don’t like how they should live, I do not. You advocate that children should be taken from their gay parents, simply because they are gay and not because of the quality of the household environment. You want to take rights away, and I do not.
A few choice comments:
You had no sense for the nuclear fusion blueprint because you are clueless with regard to the inner workings of the Republican Party.
And you can’t even grasp that you got the figure wrong, or that you can interpret it in some REALLY funny (albeit unintentional) ways. Hence the post: He Blinded Me With Science.
It’s actually one of the funniest posts on EffU.
As a liberal, you have overthrown the source of morality (and inalienable rights) and seek, instead, to become your own source of your own standards. That is why the complete domination of a nation by those with statist ideology inevitably leads to the imprisonment of political dissidents, torture and genocide.
And you as a conservative assume that I should automatically follow your religion. Too bad I don’t, eh? Seems like something that you and the Taliban have in common…
I also must have missed the “Whereas” part of R-71 that said that the state will execute all straight folks in Washington. Why don’t you tell me where R-71 establishes “genocide”? When do MORE rights lead to “statism”?
Now you’re getting it. Being drunk makes you unqualified to be a driver. Being sexually incapacitated makes you unqualified to be married.
Must’ve missed that required fertility test to get married in Washington State.
You think it is two individuals living in the same house, each providing a sexual object for the other.
You don’t need to bang your new husband or wife before you file a tax return jointly. Unless you actually believe that the state has a vested interest in your own personal sexual objects, marriage is a civil contract to recognize a household formed by a couple. There is NO mention of sexual activity or implied requirements for that in the requirements for straight marriage.
(Well, there are conditions regarding age, polygamy and incest, of course… but none of them have anything to do with whether a household is gay or straight.)
Actual marriage is a melding together of a man and a woman into a single unit, each supplying parts of that union that, on much more than a sexual level, bring psychological, emotional and spiritual elements to the union that the other cannot provide. It is not only the sexual organs that were made for each other, but an entire spectrum of attributes of gender, virtually all of which the morally reprobate cannot even discern.
So a limp-wristed dad or a husky, rugby-playing mom would automatically be unfit to you, then? Unless you believe that sexual organs BY THEMSELVES bestow spooky magical powers of parenting, what other elements of the “spectrum of attributes of gender” are essential to a child’s development? Go ahead and name them, and show why straight couples can AUTOMATICALLY provide them, and gay couples AUTOMATICALLY cannot.
A “household” is people living together under one roof. A “gay” household includes two or more people of the same sex engaging in mutual sexual activity. No more.
A natural “family” is a husband and wife and any children their union produces. A “marriage” is such a family based on the mutual unilateral commitment of each parent to the other, exclusively, for life, under God, contingent on no circumstance except sexual fidelity, from which actual love and the basis of all culture grows.
Ludicrous. For every one of those gay couples that matches your insane, hyperbolic stereotype, I can provide you with a great example of a straight couple — some even religious! — that lines up with that same stereotype! If any couple, straight OR gay, is willing to make a commitment and enter into a contract to form a household, they should be allowed certain rights.
But let’s say for the sake of argument that you reserve the right to dictate which couples should get rights, and which should not. If I am of the position that religion is harmful, and I work get a motion passed that prevents the religious from getting married, keeps them from adopting children, and takes away any children that they may have, is that right? If I think that mixed-race marriages are morally wrong, should I work to strike those down? If your religious faith allows you to say that gay couples should not be married, what prevents other people’s beliefs from dictating other rights and certain specific couples should or should not have?
Hey, Kid:
“Folks like you need to lie to promote your position on R-71. This referendum will NOT result in domestic partnerships being called marriage…”
It is you who is lying. I did not say that it calls domestic partnerships marriage. It says 180 times that they are equal to marriage and it makes them “equal” to marriage, legally. The name is irrelevant, except for decievers… like you to be able to confuse people. I called it “marriage by euphemism.” Do you know what the word “euphemism” means?
“…says NOTHING about schools and sex ed…”
It doesn’t need to say anything and you know it. If I legislate a change in the nature of real property, I do not need to legislate a change in contracts. The contracts about real property will have to change on their own to remain relevant. In just that way, Sex Ed will change, and that is above question. Or are you willing to personally indemnify any parent whose child is taught in school that domestic partnerships are equal to marriage? Perhaps for every occurrence you could fork over… say a thousand dollars? Put your money where your mouth is.
“…WILL NOT affect straight couples in any way…”
As long as they don’t have children who have to go to public school or be exposed to media that begin to treat homosexuality as equal to heterosexuality.
“You’re the one looking to judge people under the law based on their beliefs, not me.”
That’s an absolute lie. I look to judge people based on their behavior. Anyone can “judge” beliefs themselves. That is the meaning of “freedom of speech.”
“You tell other people that you don’t like how they should live, I do not.”
Show me some quotation, any quotation, by me, to that effect on “gay rights.” Whether or not I “like” how they live is not at issue. On the other hand, Kid, do you tell rapists, thieves or child molesters you don’t like how they live? Do you think their preferences are civil rights?
“You advocate that children should be taken from their gay parents, simply because they are gay and not because of the quality of the household environment.”
This is another complete lie. There is no such thing as a “gay parent.” There is nothing to take away because the “gay” lifestyle is incapable of producing children. I pointed this out earlier. Learn to read more carefully.
“You want to take rights away, and I do not.”
No one has “rights” based on deviant sexual practices. We wish to prevent a law that eviscerates children’s rights from going into effect.
You had no sense for the nuclear fusion blueprint because you are clueless with regard to the inner workings of the Republican Party.
“And you can’t even grasp that you got the figure [the nuclear fusion blueprint] wrong,”
How can I possibly have gotten a blueprint for my own expression “wrong?”
You could say it is ugly or that you hate the idea it expresses, or point out that it varies from the phenomenon as described by physical science, but saying a creative work of art is “wrong” is the height of self-satisfied stupidity.
How many works of art are “wrong” in the average University art fair?
Did you write the Beatles pointing out that the proper spelling is “Beetles”?
You are so thick it’s amazing.
Do you assume that I was trying to duplicate a representation of actual nuclear fusion? Then why would I change it, genius?
“…you as a conservative assume that I should automatically follow your religion.”
Another lie. I have never said anything remotely close to that.
“…you and the Taliban have in common…”
This is liberal hate speech, name calling in the absence of substantive argument.
“… the state will execute all straight folks in Washington.”
I never suggested such a thing. Learn to read.
“Why don’t you tell me where R-71 establishes ‘genocide’?”
I never said such a thing. Learn to read.
“When do MORE rights lead to “statism”?”
Domestic partnerships are an assault on children’s rights. Giving license to an invented group [as domestic partnership legislation does] is the basis of tyranny. The license to unilaterally abolish contracts, for example. The license to the practitioners of sexual perversion to adopt defenseless children is another instance of this. But none of this is to the point. You are a statist irrespective of your sexual libertinism. That you hate the cultural basis of free society just comes with the territory. Your heart inclines you to the left. You instinctively take the wrong turn at every corner. As a democrat you support the transference of control of every institution from private to public control. Right now, we’re talking about the auto industry, the banking industry, the medical profession, land use, etc. etc. When you’re done we’ll have full communism and no freedom. You are the child of your Father.
“There is NO mention of sexual activity or implied requirements for that in the requirements for straight marriage.”
You really don’t have a clue what real marriage is, do you?
“So a limp-wristed dad or a husky, rugby-playing mom would automatically be unfit to you, then?”
Nothing of the sort can be distilled from anything I said. Learn to read.
“…what other elements of the “spectrum of attributes of gender” are essential to a child’s development?”
All of them.
“Unless you believe that sexual organs BY THEMSELVES bestow spooky magical powers…”
As a functional atheist and sexual anarchist you actively disbelieve in all differences between men and women that are not the organs of reproduction. If they did not keep re-appearing with every birth, I’m sure you would do away with them, as well. I would, were you actually interested in the topic, hold forth on the subject of the “non-reproductive” differences between men and women. But to what purpose? So you can deny and ridicule them? Distort them to your own destruction as you have my other words? These things are beautiful, precious, holy. “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” I am content that it be concluded I believe men and women are different and that you believe they are not.
“…your insane, hyperbolic stereotype…”
I provided three definitions. None of them was intended to be even so extensive as a general description. You can’t possibly distill “stereotype” from that. Learn to read. Learn to think.
But since you suggest “any couple” that is “willing to make a commitment” and “enter into a contract” be “allowed” rights [please note the psychology of statism, here, the government “allowing” rights] please, tell me what this “commitment” should be and what should be the sanctions for breaking such a “contract.”
“…every one of those gay couples that matches…”
Mathces what? Are the same sex? Live together? I provided a pretty simple definition.
“…that same stereotype!”
What stereotype? I provided none. I defined three words, very generally. “Household” only requires people living together. “Family” requires people related to each other. “Marriage” is the most difficult and has many more requirements. A Marriage IS a household, not a “stereotype” in contradistinction to a household.
“…let’s say for the sake of argument that you reserve the right to dictate which couples…”
All laws are the government dictating things. Because you are advocating the passage of new law it is YOU who are “reserving the right to dictate which couples should get rights” See: Who has the right to marry?
“If your religious faith allows you to say that gay couples should not be married, what prevents other people’s beliefs from dictating other rights and certain specific couples should or should not have?”
This is deceptively spurious reasoning. On the first level you are saying “If government can pass good laws facilitating certain activities, couldn’t they also pass bad laws?” The answer, of course, is “Yes. Good or bad laws could be passed, but that is not a valid argument against good law.” On the next level you are saying, If people can vote for the ideals inherent in their religious beliefs, couldn’t people with opposing beliefs vote for thier ideals? The answer, again, is, most assuredly, “Yes.” But that is no excuse to ban religious speech nor to ban religious people from voting. Your whole final paragraph is an exercise in subtle deception. Homosexuality is not a religious belief, but a behavior, in fact, a sexual perversion. It is no different, in that regard, than prostitution, or bestiality. The only argument in its favor is that a sizeable, and increasingly violent, minority has fallen under its influence. There is no more a “right” to sexual perversion, simply because a group has addicted itself to it, than there is to “sharing” by people who have a “different property orientation.” (theft). But if we have laws that can take the property from someone who “shares” it and give it back to the person who thinks they “own” it from whom it has been “taken” then couldn’t we have laws that take things from those same people who think they“work” to “own” things with their “own money”? Obviously, yes. Your President is doing it right now.
Article XXVI of the Washington State constitution says:
“First. That perfect toleration of religious sentiment shall be secured and that no inhabitant of this state shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship.”
Article XXXI – Sex Equality, Rights and Responsibilities
Section 1 – Equality not Denied Because of Sex
Equality of rights and responsibility under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex…..
In the Declaration of Rights section of the Washington State constitution is this:
Section 11 – Religious Freedom
Absolute freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment, belief, and worship, shall be guaranteed to every individual, and no one shall be molested or disturbed in person, or property, on account of religion; but the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the state.” [Emphasis added]
“Section 12 – Special Privileges and Immunities Prohibited
No law shall be passed granting to any citizen, class of citizens, or corporation other than municipal, privileges or immunities which upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens, or corporations.” [Emphasis added]
In February of this year the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that California’s Proposition 8 which banned same sex marriage was unconstitutional. FYI Washington State is under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit so Referendum 70 was filed in bad faith.
Like it or not what homosexuals do to one another is not too different from what many heterosexuals do to one another and I really don’t give a darn what other people do as long as they are not coercing me to do or refrain from certain activities. This is the CORE message that Ron Paul was trying to put across. Let’s stop being busy-bodies and stop being so prejudiced.
Lastly, too few self-identified “Republicans” have even a scintilla of a notion what it means to be a Republican. Here is what my Merriam-Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary says:
“2 b: of, relating to or constituting one of the two major political parties in the U.S. evolving in the mid-19th century and usu. associated with business, financial and some agricultural interests and with favoring a restricted governmental role in social and economic life.” [Emphasis added]
If you want to control others, you are not a republican but more closely aligned with the Democratic Party. REAL Republicans want to follow the rule of law. That means following the US and Washington State constitutions. As cited above, there are NUMEROUS citations to the Washington State constitution that show that being able to be “married” in the eyes of the state can’t be determined by ones sex or religious beliefs. Speaking of religious beliefs, that is where Justice Saunders shot himself in the foot and found himself unemployed. He let his religious beliefs taint his judgment when he ruled against marriage equality. He really should have taken the time to read the Washington State constitution. If he wants to win his current race all he needs to do is to hold a press conference and make a public apology for that erroneous ruling and promise to never make that mistake again. If he did that, he would win.
Mark Bennett
Thanks for writing Mark.
There is nothing in the Washington State or U.S. Constitutions justifying, or protecting homosexual practices (any more than prostitution) or mandating same-sex “marriage,” but a few factual errors seem to lead you to believe they might.
There are only two sexes; male and female. “Gay” is not a sex. Homosexual acts are a sexual behavior, as are heterosexual acts.
Further, homosexuality is no more a religion or a form of worship than it is a sex. Homosexual acts are a sexual behavior, like rape or bestiality or numerous heterosexual acts.
Homosexuality is an act of licentiousness. The concept of “licentiousness,” in fact, is dependent on the concept of sexual morality, just as the concept of “ownership” is dependent on the concept of the morality of property.
Therefore, your arguments in favor of government-imposed “Gay” Marriage or sexual anarchy based upon Articles XXVI, XXXI, and Section 11 of the Declaration of Rights are groundless.
Legal Marriage, defined as the union of members of the opposite sex, moreover, clearly and obviously does not confer any privilege or immunity that does not “equally belong to all citizens” since there are two sexes and everyone belongs to one or the other and has the liberty to engage, therefore, in marriage as a matter of free choice. So no argument based on Section 12 holds ground, either.
Ron Paul believes in marriage between one man and one woman. He does not believe in same-sex marriage. He also believes government should have no role in marriage, except the enforcement of written contracts. I disagree, but it has no significance at the Federal level because there is no Constitutional role for the Federal Government in marriage.
For exactly that reason the ruling of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals you reference is an unconstitutional ruling. It is, quite literally, lawlessness since it is the imposition of the personal preference of the Judges in direct contradiction of their authority under law – an exercise in raw arbitrary power.
If one believes in the rule of Law, regardless of his position on same-sex marriage, one must condemn the acts of the 9th circuit just as Ron Paul did the US Supreme Court when they overturned Texas law in Lawrence v Texas on largely the same lawless, unconstitutional basis.
The Constitution is law. The pronouncements of the 9th Circuit in contradiction of it are not. And since it is not a ruling of the US Supreme Court it is NOT incumbent on the citizens of States not affected by its specific ruling in California to regard it as an authoritative violation of their State’s jurisdiction in a matter clearly reserved to the States – not the Federal Government and not Federal judges.
Somewhat disturbing is your philosophically erroneous comment, “If you want to control others, you are not a republican but more closely aligned with the Democratic Party.”
Mark, every legitimate act of government is an act restricting some behavior – it “controls others.” If you believe there is no act that can legitimately be restrained by government, you are not a Republican… nor a Democrat. You are not even a Libertarian. You are an Anarchist – one who, like Chip Barron and many principled (though I believe misguided) people, DOES’T believe in the rule of Law. Those people don’t believe that there are any universal principles that should, therefore, govern everyone.
Your quotation even makes this distinction about Republicans. It defines “Republican” as “…favoring a restricted governmental role…” It does not say “non-existent governmental role.”
Again, Mark, thanks for writing and thank you for your labors in the cause of liberty.