“It Gets Better” creator says gay marriage opponents up to dirty tricks in WA
Feb 28, 2012, 11:31 AM | Updated: Oct 14, 2024, 10:48 am
 Stranger Editor and “It Gets Better” creator Dan Savage says gay marriage opponents in Washington are already up to “very dirty tricks.” (MyNW.com) |
Stranger Editor and “It Gets Better” creator Dan Savage says gay marriage opponents in Washington are already up to “very dirty tricks.”
“They’re going to try to put two referendums on the ballot, one that you’ll have to vote yes on, one that you’ll have to vote no on to keep marriage equality in Washington State,” Stranger Editorial Director Savage tells 97.3 KIRO FM’s Ross and Burbank Show. “They’re doing it to confuse voters.”
Listen to Dan Savage on Ross & Burbank
When asked what he thinks the prospects of the law are if the issue goes to voters, Savage says, “It’s a tossup.”
“The polls show by about a 5 percent margin people are supportive, but every time it’s gone to a vote we’ve dropped five points once people are actually voting,” says Savage.
Preserve Marriage Washington, the group that filed Referendum 74 the day Gregoire signed the bill legalizing gay marriage, says their goal is “to qualify a referendum to the November 2012 ballot giving voters the right to approve or reject SB 6239 which seeks to redefine marriage. The coalition advocates that voters reject redefining marriage.”
But Savage says it’s not gay people who are trying to redefine marriage.
“The issue is that straight people have redefined marriage to a point where it no longer makes any logical sense to exclude same-sex couples from that institution,” says Savage.
“A marriage can be religious or not, monogamous or not, there can be children or not, basically when it’s an opposite sex couple, anything goes. They get to define what marriage is for themselves,” says Savage. “From that institution, under the equal protections clause of the constitution, you cannot exclude same-sex couples, there is no rational basis, that’s what courts keep finding.”
If opponents collect the more than 120,577 valid voter signatures needed by June 6, the law will be put on hold pending the outcome of a November vote.
Savage says if there is a vote, it will be a “nail biter.”
By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
