
I am declining to sign petitions to place Referendum 71 on the ballot. I'm not ashamed to say that, as a married father of two children, I am not going to sign on to this referendum, which would reverse the domestic partnership bill passed by the Legislature and signed by Governor Gregoire earlier this year.
I am asking that you think before you ink, too.
Personally, I regret that many of our legislators described
Senate Bill 5688 as "everything but marriage." Clearly, that isn't the case. Married and partnered couples may be equal under state law, but the State is still treating same-sex couples differently by making sure that they are not equal under federal law.
Washington State is not asking the federal government to confer the 1138 federal rights, responsibilities and benefits of marriage to these couples. These include Social Security benefits; veterans benefits; equal treatment under the tax code; and the right to sponsor non-American family members, including a spouse, for permanent residency or citizenship. -- Washblog, May 11, 2009
The final Bill Report for SB 5688 makes it all clear. ". . . the intent of the Legislature [is] to ensure that all privileges, immunities, rights, benefits, or responsibilities granted or imposed by statute to an individual because that individual is or was a spouse in a marital relationship are granted or imposed on equivalent terms to an individual because that individual is or was in a state registered domestic partnership."
To do anything less is to confer less than full rights to those who otherwise have to meet the same obligations as the rest of us. It is simply discriminatory to deny productive, tax-paying family members of their rights as the rest of us.
Referendum 71 is spearheaded by the
Washington Values Alliance and their
Protect Marriage Washington PAC. If Referendum 71 is exemplary of their kind of "family values," then clearly these are not my values. I personally know too many families - and children of families - headed by same-sex partners, to believe stripping them of the financial and civil rights extended by domestic partnerships is anything less than "treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit." In other words,
discrimination.
I believe my values are more in line with those of
Washington Families Standing Together. It was my pleasure to put my money where my mouth is, too, and support that coalition's efforts to put out the word onReferendum 71. If you feel as I do,
click here and make a donation.
I have one other point to make. There are those who say that extension of these rights to those in registered domestic partnerships is a
threat to marriage. I don't see it. I've been married for 22 years. Where, specifically, is the threat to my marriage? It isn't there; it's just empty rhetoric.
Sponsors of Referendum 71 have until July 25 to collect 120,577 valid voter signatures to get the measure on the Nov. 3 ballot. My signature won't be on it; I hope yours won't, either.
--MARK MESSINGER