Tolerance = Agreement

Well here in WA state we are facing an upcoming election. On Tuesday, November 3rd, voters are being asked to vote on a variety of local elections, and two big state referendums. One concerns limiting state and local governments general funds in a manner that ties it to income and inflation, with the rest being kicked back in the form of property tax cuts, á la Prop. 13 in California. The other is Prop. 71, which states:

This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage.

Here's the backstory: Voters in WA passed in 1998 a Defense of Marriage act which defined marriage in Washington state to be the traditional marriage between one man and one woman. In May 2009 Governor Christine Gregoire signed into law a bill passed by the state legislature to grant all the rights heretofore accorded to married couples to domestic partnerships, which essentially gave all the legal rights of marriage without the name "marriage". The supporters of traditional marriage in WA accordingly collected signatures and filed a petition to refer this new law for referendum and approval by the voters, as they are allowed to do under the state constitution. Therefore this measure is now on the ballot for the November 3rd election.

Here is the real nitty gritty issue with this referendum--and I'm not talking about the referendum itself. Instead, I'm talking about the hullabaloo that has cropped about around the petition to refer this legislation to the ballot. In particular, there has been a nasty legal tussle about the identities of signers of the petition to put Prop. 71 on the ballot. Opponents of Prop. 71 have argued that the petition is a matter of public record and therefore all the identities of the signers should be released. There are two organizations that have been created which promise to publish the list of signers as soon as they are made public: knowthyneighbor.org, and whosigned.org . Proponents of Prop. 71 have argued that petition signing is a form of political speech, and therefore protected (and private/secret) under the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The big problem I have here is that there are people and judges/courts that actually agree that these names should be made public! Since when does signing a political petition to get an issue on a ballot NOT constitute political speech?? Ummmmmm, the last time I checked, I wasn't required to show anyone my ballot choices before I put it into the ballot box. And the same goes for signing my NAME on any petition to get something ONTO that ballot! You might as well require folks to sign their name and initial next to every ballot choice, because requiring public disclosure of petition signers' identities amounts to that.

The Washington Secretary of State had argued that the names needed to be released according to the Washington Public Records Act. Apparently the Secretary of State has not read this particular piece of legislation, because when I looked it up in WA's law books I found this interesting tidbit about invasion of privacy:

A person's "right to privacy," "right of privacy," "privacy," or "personal privacy," as these terms are used in this chapter, is invaded or violated only if disclosure of information about the person: (1) Would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and (2) is not of legitimate concern to the public.

Now I would certainly argue that, given that the organizations geared up to publish this data are called "Know Thy Neighbor" and "Who Signed", there is a great deal of offense being taken about who signed this petition. Secondly, I would also point out that signing a petition to refer a measure to the ballot does not necessarily indicate how a person would vote. It could well be that people signed the petition with the idea that they wanted to vote for the law and give their voter seal of approval to it.

Furthermore, I also found when I read the Public Records Act that petitions to refer legislation to ballot are not included in RCW 42.56.070, the subsection that details which types of records must be made public. And, even if these types of documents were included, there is again a specific clause protecting privacy which states, "To the extent required to prevent an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy interests protected by this chapter, an agency shall delete identifying details in a manner consistent with this chapter when it makes available or publishes any public record; however, in each case, the justification for the deletion shall be explained fully in writing."

This is a big deal, folks, and it's not going to go away. The U.S. Supreme Court has waded in to uphold a restraining order preventing the release of signers' identities, but the whole case is on appeal and will probably end up in the U.S. Supreme Court before all is said and done. It has made the Colbert Report, with Stephen Colbert satirizing the lawsuit and those who are arguing that the signatures should remain private. Proponents of Prop. 71 argue that traditional marriage supporters are being subjected to harassment and intimidation similar to what supporters of California's Prop. 8 experienced. That's ugliness at its worst, and it's not getting better.

What I'd like is for somebody to tell me how this is "tolerance"? It's tolerant to demand the names of people who sign a petition to refer a law to the ballot, because you need to "know your neighbor"? How so? What exactly about their signature on a ballot petition is in any way your business? What is essentially being argued for here is, "if you don't agree with me or I think you are giving the appearance to me, of not agreeing with me, I need to know about it". So really, "tolerance" means "agreement". Because if you don't agree with me, then I need to know about it. I don't think so.

I'm sorry, I hadn't realized that the right to maintain a difference of opinion means I give up my right to privacy at the ballot box and other legally mandated rights as a voter, which includes the petition process. I'm not buying it, and I'm betting the U.S. Supreme Court won't either (here's a hint...only one justice on the court disagreed with the restraining order being upheld). But it's very disturbing to me that such a large number of people seem to think they have a right to identify people who sign a ballot petition. This is a disturbing trend toward stripping rights away from folks just because they disagree with the perceived "mainstream" opinion. The fact that so many states have passed "defense of marriage" legislation at the ballot box ought to be a pretty good indicator that the "mainstream" opinion as given by the media is not really so "mainstream" after all.

Randomania

I've been super, über busy lately, so this blog is going to be a real shotgun blast of stuff.

• Why is it that all infants seem to have a "poopy" outfit? You know, the one outfit that you put the kid in, and guaranteed that they will have a huge blowout diaper sometime during the day while they are wearing it? Granted this can be handy if you think your baby is getting constipated, but it also always seems to be the cutest outfit that you have for the baby that is chosen as the "poopy" outfit by the baby.
• Grading sucks. No, really, 250 assignments/quizzes/labs to grade per week is a tad much given my (scanty but I will take it TYVM) pay rate. However, on the plus side, students' handwriting on their homework assignments gets really amusing when you're grading at 11:30 pm and have been awake since 7 am.
• Please get a flu shot, preferably both seasonal and H1N1. I will not tell you the number of times I have been tilting at windmills in some internet forums about this lately, but it really is important for everyone who is able, to get immunized. If you want to read about why vaccines are safe, check out the CDC's website (they are not part of a vast government conspiracy, folks--they are just scientists who are trying to do their job and protect the public health according to scientifically proven evidence that has passed rigorous peer review). The very young kiddos (like my baby) and immunocompromised individuals who cannot be immunized are reliant on the general population getting the flu shot to prevent it from spreading. Flu kills 36,000 people per year in America. If more people were vaccinated, that number would directly decrease. If you could prevent one car accident where someone would die, wouldn't you? So please get immunized.
• Grading sucks. Did I say that already? Well, it does.
• A two year old and a four year old squabbling nearly constantly for the entirety of the day is quite draining for the parents. It seems like discipline falls on deaf ears (and numb bottoms, when spankings are required). At some point they will outgrow this, right? Right??
• This economy, it majorly sucketh. My husband is still in limbo-land regarding his job, but from all indications from much higher-ups, he is safe and a bunch of other folks, are about to lose their jobs. You know that old saw about being in the top 10% of employees at work, and that will protect your job? Yeah, it's holding true here. He is going to be reporting to a higher up, so that is sort of a back-door promotion-with-no-pay-raise-or-title-change. Now those other folks are going to be unemployed, and I pray that God will provide a better job for them for their sakes. But it does not feel good to be unemployed, especially leading up to Christmas. Now my husband will continue doing the jobs of four people, and add in the jobs of others who will be let go. Needless to say, he is tired from the demands on his skills and energy. I feel sorry for him, and selfishly (cravenly) glad that he still has a job. I do not know what we would do if he lost his job--we would be in big, big trouble.
• Speaking of which, the old emergency fund is on life support, and we need to resuscitate it pronto. My salary, it helps. But we have Ye Olde Debt to pay off, and we also have a terrible economy. So while credit card companies are raising interest rates even for good customers (ouch), I have a non-existent emergency fund that I need to rebuild. These two things are mutually exclusive, yes? So we need to find the right balance here. We also have to buckle down majorly on the expenditures. M-A-J-O-R-L-Y. I am seriously thinking we need to declare debit cards off-limits entirely. We are just blowing way past our grocery budget and eating out budget and entertainment/crap/clothes/everything else budget. Hell, what budget? That's been the mindset around here, and owies, that costs. A serious spending freeze and the reign of King Cash, Only and Verily Yea Even for Gas, Deposit Ye Olde Cash at Bank and then Go Straight to Costco Gas Do Not Pass GO Do Not Collect $200 or Even a Measly Starbucks on the Way.

*sigh* It's a lot to be juggling. I have dropped the ball and fallen down and scraped my nose and elbow and knee on the budget and the blood on the spreadsheet, it is not good. I have Christmas presents to buy and I want to take advantage of good deals as they pop up, but I have to be really conscious of what it actually *costs* to just "throw something on the credit card and pay it off later". Because "later" is really expensive, so that makes it not such a good deal, huh? Yes, I still suck at basic math even WITH a PhD (not really but somehow my brain goes "Lalalalala!" when it comes to doing math with OUR MONEY as opposed to some other scientific number crunching). Failed juggler, that's me. Time to pick up all the balls again and start juggling madly. There is grading/budgeting/laundry calling my name. Stay tuned.