Referendum 71: Fundamental Progress

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.
Referendum 71 stands firm upon the November 3 mail-in ballot that Washingtonians still able to afford a 44-cent stamp will be asked to send back. Without the power and glory of last year’s call for change in a historic presidential election, experts say the electorate will be composed of seniors still angry that the government is threatening to take over Medicare, and members of the Susan Hutchinson fan club. This not bode well for those of us who believe that Referendum 71 should never have been up for a vote.
The United States is a republic, not a democracy, because the founding fathers — refugees of a tyrannical monarchy themselves — believed that certain fundamental rights should never be put up for a vote. OK, they did put in a clause in the original Constitution that rendered black people as three-fifths of a human. Still, many believed that minorities should never be at the tyranny of the majority.
I strongly believe that if America voted on the issue of slavery today, the practice could win re-instatement. There are enough ignorant people in the world who get their “news” from a Rupert Murdoch vehicle, or by listening to the Michelle Bachman’s of our society, that the idea of sweat capitalism could be a fascination. I am sure if it were possible, the national electorate would compel everyone to remain in their birth-assigned gender without possibility of parole or even a Halloween exemption.
Everyone in our community who has ever wondered what it might be like to be loved by someone, everyone who wants to see the mud-dragging, low-lifers of negativism branded with rainbow tattoos, should do everything they can to make sure that all of us who demanded change a year ago, put an end to the political forces that created Referendum 71. That means banging on doors, making calls, and offering a 44-cent stamp to every unemployed voter. Even if you’re not in love, never think you will be, or have sobering nightmares about your last relationship; you owe it simply to progress to do all you can do to make sure that Referendum 71 is the final nail in the coffin of the hate community.
As I was writing these paragraphs, I just received word that the United States Senate has joined the House of Representatives in passing the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes bill. At last it is illegal to kill or maim someone merely for their sexual orientation or gender identity. Baby steps! How long can it be before it is OK for us to love another?