Election 2009

In a community that gets only a wee bit more respect than child molesting axe murderers, this year’s vote on Referendum 71 seems like a reminder that equality is more than a generation or two away. While we live in a time when gender identity is a protected class here in Washington, visions of same-sex marriage that danced happily in our heads before the 2006 state Supreme Court decision are now so many New Year’s resolutions away.
Instead of marriage, the state has given gays and lesbians in love an artificial sweetener dubbed the “everything but marriage” bill. While “everything but marriage” may not fit well on a Hallmark card, it does provide certain unalienable rights that most heterosexual couples take for granted. Still, even this artificial sweetener is too much of a carcinogen for those that live in the tradition that love means the missionary position or at the very least that a woman should always walk 50 feet behind her husband.