A North West View

One of the newest groups to throw their support behind marriage equality in Washington state and take an official stance that Ref 74 should be a proved is the Seattle Chamber Of Commerce which represents 2,200 company's, it joins the ranks of company's like Microsoft and Starbucks, as well as many faith groups and Labor groups like my union UFCW 21, in voicing their support for the right of all citizens of Washington to be able to marry.   Of course being the chamber of commerce their reason boils down to the economics of it, in that it creates a simpler system of providing benefits to employees who have same sex partners, as well as helping to make it easier to attract and keep talent, especially when competing with other states (and countries) that have marriage equality. In addition to gaining another voice for equality Washington...

Well on Tuesday the backers of Initiative 1192 other wise know as I 1192 conceded that they did not and would not have enough signatures by the deadline of July 6th to make it onto the November ballot.  The backer of the  241,000     which would have changed state law to once again read that marriage is between one man and one women.  The backer of the measure S tephen Pidgeon, who is also a candidate for the state attorney generals office, (How unseemly) blamed the inability to collect enough signatures on the backers of Ref 74, and went so far as to say that the backers of Ref 74 chorused signature gathers to sabotage his Initiative campaign!  What this means though is that there is only one fight to be fought now on the November ballot and that is Ref 74.  Of-course like everything in this fight this is both good new and also some bad news at the sa...

So it never ceases to amaze my how people think that some how they can be a polite homophobe and prove that they are not hateful and there for a good kind of homophobe, and this comment from an Anonamus poster just goes to prove that like there is no such thing as a polite racist there is no such thing as a polite homophobe. This is the comment left in response to my blog post Ref 74 The Deadline Is Near . " "hate filled agenda"LOL why do gays thing that anyone who dosent agree with them are hate filled? i'm against gay "marriage" because it's bizarre and unatrual not becuase i hate gays.Just becuase i think that a dude jamming himself into another dudes lower intestine is perverted dose not mean i hte them i just think it's disgusting " (copied exactly spelling and grammatical errors included) Now this sort of comment contains one of my biggest pet peeves and it is when the person posting not only tries to paint them selve...

What is it with those that oppose same sex marriag e, otherwise know as marriage equality, when they feel like dancing around religious indignation they suddenly start pulling out the argument of   " Marriage to me is a word with specific meaning. To call something else by the same name is , I believe, a problem in semantics, confusing and illogical . Insisting on calling different things by the same name is to lose the language." ( emphasis  added) as if people and their love for each other are like an kitchen appliance or some other inanimate household object?  This is something that really gets under my skin and makes my blood boil. I mean I really just can't  comprehend  how some one can talk about other people like that!

So many of you may have already heard that marriage equality in the great state of Washington, my home, is already under attack by the anti gay rights lobby, we have two legal fronts that they are trying to attack us from, one being threw the referendum process, for which not even 3 hours after marriage equality was signed into law they had submitted their referendum which is now officially Referendum 74, R 74/Ref 74 for short.  They have the 3 month period starting with the end of this legislative session, in other words until June 6th, to submit 120,557 valid signature (non duplicate, signatures voters registered to vote in the state of Washington) and of the initiative they have until July 6th to tun in  241,153 valid signatures as well.  but the Initiative has been in the works (it was filed back in January).

There is a reason that I sort of suddenly dropped out of the picture when it came to the updates on the fight for marriage equality in my state (Washington) which by the way is scheduled to have a committee vote on the legislation, that that state Senate passed last week, this Monday with it coming to a floor vote before the whole house possibly latter in the week.  However it is not due to a lack of keen interest and desire to see said legislation implemented into law, but my utter drop off in commentary has much more to do with being sick and tired of  reading the articles and especially the comment sections of the article on this issue.  As for the articles it always seems that they have to include the usual handful of rabidly anti marriage equality commentators, and well we all know what they have to say on the issue.

Well we are just one vote away from marriage equality in Washington, with the announcement by state Senator Jim Kastama of his support of the legislation, that leaves us with 24 of the 25 votes needed to pass SB6239.  Not only are we now one vote away but today Microsoft officially came out in support of the bill as well, and posted a very well written  persuasive and eloquent (for a corperate blog) expression of support.  Which as has been mention in a previous post has been a key in garnishing the final needed votes to pass equality legislation.   Of course still being one vote away success can not be taken for granted simply for the fact that until that one vote is locked in the line could come down one vote short for us too, but there is much reason to be optimistic and bask in this little victory.

So as promised another update on the progress of the possible legalization of same-sex marriage in Washington state by the state legislature. There is no really question that the state house will vote in favor of the bill to legalise same-sex marriage as it has passed similar legislation in the past, not to mention that it is made up of 55 democratically held seats and 42 republican held seats (and one currently empty seat) the current sticking point is the state Senate which is comprised of 27 democrats and 22 republicans.