A Quickie But a Goodie / 11-4-09

Going to let this one incubate for a day or two before a full post comes out. Until then, here's some instant reaction.

I'm relieved AND proud AND ashamed at the preliminary election results this time around.

Relief category: R-71 passed. Gay couples (and let's not forget, senior citizens in heterosexual domestic partnerships, too) get to keep their rights. Fred and Ned may not have a marriage certificate to frame and put up on the wall, but they remain equal to a married couple under the law. That's worth celebrating. We are all freer today as a result. A semi-anonymous poster on a popular website put it like this: "It is a travesty that people have to fight for equal rights, when it allegedly already exists. If one group of people, or even one person is being discriminated against and denied rights, then none of us are truly free."

Relief bonus: While counted ballots gave R-71 only a 51-49 edge at 1 a.m., it's estimated that most of the uncounted votes are from King County, where the ballot measure enjoys a 2-1 advantage in the Yes column. So it's going to pass.

Pride category: I'd just started to read a Danny Westneat column on the historical progression of gay rights when he delivered this nugget: "it appears Washington state will be the first in America to approve a gay-equality measure not by court fiat or legislative action, but by the direct will of the people. It's never happened before. If the slim lead holds for the gay-partnership law Referendum 71, it would be a landmark."

That floors me. Several states permit same-sex marriage. If Dannyboy's research is money, it IS a big deal. I'll work on confirming that.

Shame category: Somewhere along the lines of 49 percent of the electorate opted to REMOVE rights from a set of citizens. I can almost understand why homophobes would vote to not GIVE rights to gay couples. An initiative along the lines of "Should we the people of Washington state extend every right enjoyed by married couples to gay couples?" is going to cause folks to hide their bigotry behind excuses. Lame excuses like "marriage is a privilege, not a right" and "marriage holds the fabric of our society together, its rights are not to be disseminated." People can rationalize anything they set their heart to, provided they have some sort of cover.

But to take away someone's rights... that's hard to pass off as anything but contempt for the basic humanity of the gay man and woman. There's no excuse for that attitude. There's no fancy hiding behind fancy reasoning available there. That kind of hatred is exposed, obvious, naked. And somehow, half of us in this state chose that option. Disgusting.

(I'll weigh in on the rest of the election results later, specifically on how R's need to temper their glee at taking the VA and NJ governorships, and how D's need to not get too worked up about their two wins in House races.)