okay something you should know

[solarbird]

I KNOW THIS IS TL;DR. PLEASE READ IT ANYWAY.

So, the last legislature expanded Washington State's domestic-partnership law to "separate but theoretically equal within the state," prompting the fundamentalists and the Catholic church - notably the Knights of Columbus - to step in with a referendum to strike the law and put it up to popular vote. Their campaign so far has been PROTECT MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN FROM PERVERT FAG SEX.

They ended up collecting about 135,000 signatures, which are going through validation now. They need around 110,000^* valid ones to shake out of that; to reach that goal, the usual suggested buffer is 150,000. However, so far, their invalid rate is better than average. (Lying to people to get signatures - as they were shown to be doing in the last days of the campaign, collecting signatures on Queen Anne by claiming it was a pro-GBLT initiative - doesn't invalidate those signatures.)

Their rate is currently 11% invalid. If that rate remains constant, it will result in getting a bit over 120,000 valid signatures, thus striking the law from the books and putting it onto the ballot, where a majority of the voters will have to approve the initiative to put it back on the books.

The hate campaign has already been going on and will be ramped up. And honestly, I can't take another one of these things. Not right now. Not after the last six years, not after having slogged my way through eight of them already, and not after the latest round of abandonment and betrayal by the give-us-your-money-and-shut-the-fuck-up party. Just reading some of the top comments on this PI story about the referendum signature validation process has fucked me up. I can't deal anymore. The religious firehose of hate makes me shake just thinking about it.

So, you guys, take over. Please. You need to tell people to support Referendum 71, assuming it gets enough signatures to make it to the ballot, as currently seems likely. You need to remember that; you need to tell people now, and you need to tell people later, as the election comes up. I know it's counter-intuitive, but getting enough signatures alone is enough to take the law off the books, for practical intents and purposes; you have to vote the referendum in - vote yes on it - to put the law back into place.

Me, I'm going to have to ignore this as much as I can. It's going to be long and ugly and brutal and I just. can't. handle. another. one. I just can't.

eta is also ^*: According to another article I just read, they actually need around 120,000 signatures. Their current success rate still gives them that, but by less of a margin. Other sources had said 110,000-ish. I don't know which is right. See link in comments to a statistical analysis if you want.

Comments

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

Reposted, for whatever good it does. Will FB and tweet as well.

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

Also, I've gotten mail about it from NARAL and Planned Parenthood already, so that's good.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

i live in Ohio - i can't help directly.

but i have one Aunt who lives in Wash, and thankfully, she's the non-republican aunt. so i copied/pasted this to her (she doesn't do LJ or anything - i'm lucky she does email!)
i know her son just turned and 18 and is big on gay marriage because his best friend is gay.

and i am, of course, about to post something on my LJ. hopefully it will spread.

[pinesandmaples]

I'm sorry you have to face this.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

According to Goldy at the Horse's Ass blog, there's a statistical ray of light (http://horsesass.org/?p=18377) here. The early validation rate is usually higher than the eventual rate because duplicate signatures become more common as the sample size increases. There's a formula used when sampling signatures to account for this, and applying that formula to the numbers we have so far suggests that this will still fail to get on the ballot, falling short one to two thousand votes.

[cow.livejournal.com]

(1) Awesome. That's a cool post; thanks for sharing! (I had wondered about that...early returns seem like they ought to be better than the average.)

(2) Holy crap, the comments on that post are abysmal. D:

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Horsesass has always had some of the worst comments/trolls on the internet.

[pinesandmaples]

Well, with a name like that...

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

You have to understand the history. The site was set up to support a ballot measure officially declaring initiative king and widely-recognized horse's ass Tim Eyman to be a horse's ass. The horse's ass initiative was tossed by the courts, but the name of the site stuck.

It's actually one of the better local blogs for political coverage, if you ignore the comments.

[maellenkleth]

Very briefly wearing my activism hat, which is usually quite out of view.

Since in speaking with Dara yesterday she mentioned that she'd turned off comment notification and thus will not see this (and also, I might add, said most definitively that she didn't want to discuss the present issue any more, which I utterly respect), I suppose I can safely mention here and now (where it will not be seen) that we've been on this thing from the beginning, backchannel, since it affects numerous families close to us.

Our best tactic is to use humour in media (as well as in visible public demonstrations) to portray the anti-gay crusaders as being just another wingnut fringe group, in effect taking the culture war back to their front steps for a change. Think of that as pushing the conflict away from our lives and families and back into their lives and families.

Where, frankly, it bloody well belongs.

Their wilful stupidity should stay with them, and well out of the way of the very real and very positive social changes that we have gained in the past 40 years.

I always opt for the glass half full rather than the glass half empty, and go on from there.

Again, in respect, I won't be discussing this further in any venues that are widely accessible. Action is being taken, and we will and shall prevail. Cellular, low-level, wide-ranging movements do succeed.

Pardon, please, the failings in my English when writing about this most important matter.

E.

[shadesofmauve]

Yup -- of course, not all signatures are actually checked -- it's a statistical extrapolation. But still, you'll find more dupes in the last day of checking than the previous week.

Hopefully the old harridan who used to run the process has retired. She was past due when I worked there a summer eight years ago, and she was telling people to engage in at least one practice that seriously fucked the statistical validity, as far as I could see.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

This explains a recent trip to Port Angeles. We stopped at a Safeway for grub. I noticed a typical peninsula mobile held together with all manner of religious bumper stickers. As we were heading for the store, someone approached us asking to participate in a "survey." He asked if we thought homosexuals should have the right to marry. We (emphatically) said yes. He thanked us and headed for -- you guessed it! -- the well-stickered car.

Which was weird, because as we were parking, we noticed him having a much, much longer conversation with someone else. We further noticed he carried what looked like a signature sheet.

Later at the Edmonds ferry, someone else was making the rounds of the parked and waiting with a more honest sign on his back -- "Sign here to prevent homosexuals marrying" or something like that.

I'm sure it's too late now, but push-polling -- pretending to conduct a survey in order to gauge the opinions of the target -- isn't that illegal? And if so, wouldn't that invalidate that Safeway creepazoids sigs?

[solarbird]

None of that is illegal - if he knows you're pro-civil-rights, why waste his and your time? And he can ask to find out right off the bat.

[leftbase.livejournal.com]

Living in Massachusetts, I can't help directly either, but I posted an entry and hope it helps.

[shadesofmauve]

That is sickening. I try (honestly try) not to read the comments at online newspapers, because they're ALWAYS hate-filled and never reality based (did you know there was a homosexual mafia? I hadn't a clue!)...but they reflect terribly on our culture.

Will happily post to LJ and facebook, but as usual, it's preaching to the choir.

[redbeardsghost.livejournal.com]

I wonder, other than the strain on your nerves and pocketbooks, if it would be better for the initiative to fail to get enough signatures, or enough votes?

I would think that getting on the ballot and then failing would signal a bigger defeat for Them, and make it harder to put another initiative on the ballot next time, than simply failing to get enough signatures, especially if they are close.

Of course, this is not my area of expertise. But I think it would be good for our country for the law in Washington to stand, and even be changed into a true marriage law. For what little it's worth.

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

if one could be certain of it passing,
putting it to a vote would be good,
but the same program of lies and hysteria might work again...

[redbeardsghost.livejournal.com]

And that's where the stress comes in. It's anyone's guess how successful the campaign would be. Or rather, it's someone else's guess, and not mine, because I haven't got a clue.

[solarbird]

I really should turn off comment notification for this post...

Anyway, I have no faith whatsoever that Washington State voters would pass this referendum. It's possible, of course. But I have absolutely zero faith in that. Zero.

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

Oh, the desire for Bob's "Rupture" to become truth:>

[capybyra.livejournal.com]

A world where the Reign of Bob took control might not be any kinder or gentler- but it would be a whole lot less annoying...