"Seattle, WA – The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance (WA-DOMA) announced on Thursday that their proposed initiative to make procreation a requirement for legal marriage has been accepted by the Secretary of State and assigned the serial number 957. The initiative has been in the planning stages since the Washington Supreme Court ruled last July that the state’s Defense of Marriage Act was constitutional.It's this kind of insane/inane initiative-mongering that makes the need of initiative reform that much more necessary. I strongly believe that signatures for initiatives should be gathered by non-paid gatherers. The minimum wage initiative used only non-paid gatherers (I volunteered to stand out at Percivile Landing and gather signatures) who believe so strongly in their cause that they donate time to their cause.
“For many years, social conservatives have claimed that marriage exists solely for the purpose of procreation,” said WA-DOMA organizer Gregory Gadow in a printed statement. “The Washington Supreme Court echoed that claim in their lead ruling on Andersen v. King County. The time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own medicine. If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage because they can not have children together, it follows that all couples who can not or will not have children together should equally be barred from marriage. And this is what the Defense of Marriage Initiative will do.”"
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance
Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance:
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2 comments:
You might want to look at our website: http://www.wa-doma.org. We do not want this to go into effect; we want to spark public discussion on the inherently bigoted rationale that "marriage exists for the purpose of procreation" which has been used by conservatives for years and which served as the basis for last year's ruling in Andersen v. King County.
And why the rant on paid signature gatherers? We are not planning to go that route, nor was there any mention at all of paid signature gatherers in the press release you quoted. The $300,000 we are hoping to raise is to cover the cost of voter education (clearly, it is needed) and printing petitions and would not be anywhere near enough to pay money for signatures.
Update:
I definitely misread the intent of the proposed initiative. My apologies. I certainly support efforts that work towards legalizing marriage between any two consenting adults. Good luck to your effort.
However, my stance on paid signature gatherer stands. Too often, it is conservative efforts that use money from outside the state to collect signatures for initiatives. For all initiatives, whether they come from a liberal or conservative base, no signature gatherers should be paid for their efforts. Pending current legislation, if passed, will not stop this, but it is heading in the right direction.
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