A North West View

There is something missing in the adds for marriage equality in Washington State (and in the 3 other state facing marriage equality measures this year) and that is the total lack of gay people in the ads, instead like in Washington they seem to have every one and their uncle from pro equality republican positions to clergy and family talking about why marriage equality matters, how gay people want the same things out of marriage as every one else in society and why they are deserving of the right to marry. Yet there are no gay people making the case, which even thought the ads that are being put out are good and do carry the message well and pull at the heartstrings of the views (like the video after the jump) it would seem to me, and meany others that to have gay people make the case would be a good way of going about it.  As we are the ones that this decisions ultimately affects why aren't we the ones ...

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...

The dead line for the opponents of marriage equality are nearing the deadline for them to turn all the signatures they have gathered to try and get Referendum 74 on the ballot in November, according to "Preserve Marriage Washington" (one of the most perverse name for a group that wants to take the basic human right of marriage away from people) they have enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot.  As of Wednesday they claimed to have over 150,00 signatures which is am amount that the Secretary of States Office recommends to insure a buffer for invalid and duplicate signatures in order to meet the legal requirement of 120,557 valed signatures.  They are cutting it close with Tuesday being June 5th and the deadline being Jun 6th, but if what they say is true, then sort of them having a much higher then average rate of non valid signatures, their me...

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).