Voting On Gay Civil Rights
In 1997 a group called Hands Off Washington (HOW), which was originally founded to keep Christian groups from putting anti-gay initiatives on the ballot, decided to put a pro-gay rights initiative on the ballot in Washington State. This was after gay groups, locally and nationally, had spent nearly a decade arguing—all the way to the Supreme Court—that voting on the civil rights of a minority was unconstitutional. It was a bad idea, politically stupid, and its certain failure would, many predicted (myself included), have negative repercussions for years to come. The gay and lesbian community was deeply divided, but HOW pressed ahead with their initiative regardless.
Despite claiming that their initiative enjoyed overwhelming support throughout the state, HOW couldn’t manage to gather enough signatures to get their pro-gay rights initiative on the ballot. But without a campaign the group couldn’t justify its existence, so they refused to take their failure to get the signatures they needed as a sign of lukewarm support for their efforts. They proceeded to hire paid signature gatherers—which they had pledged not to do—and eventually to get just enough signatures.
Their initiative—I-677—was trounced at the polls, defeated by a twenty-point margin. Even voter turn-out on Capitol Hill was pathetic. So with gay money HOW managed to do what anti-gay groups in Washington State couldn’t do: they got an initiative on the ballot, and allowed state voters to say “no” to gay rights. It was, politically speaking, a colossal blunder. The political stupidity displayed by the architects of I-677 was staggering. HOW collapsed, taking gay political organizing in the state down with it.
It took almost a decade to finally pass a gay civil rights bill in Washington state—passed by the state legislature this year, no thanks to the idiots who ran 677. Last year when the gay civil rights bill failed by one vote, Democrats in the legislature who voted against it pointed to the 677 as a reason why they couldn’t support the gay rights bill.
Now that a gay rights bill has passed—thanks to heroic efforts of Ed Murray, who opposed I-677—along comes Tim Eyman, who is gathering signatures to put a repeal of that gay civil rights bill on the ballot. After the manifest idiocy that was 677, gays and lesbians in Washington state can’t argue that voting on our civil rights is unfair or unconstitutional—not after we financed the last vote on our civil rights. So there’s going to be an initiative, which means gays and lesbians in Washington state are going to be asked to write checks to fund a group to campaign against Tim Eyman’s initiative. The group has been founded—Washington Won’t Discriminate.
There’s a piece in today’s Seattle Times about I-677—a piece that fails to capture just how divisive the I-677 campaign was, how unnecessary, or how much damage it did—with a headline that would be funny if it weren’t so tragic: Some question use of ballot box to settle issues like gay rights. Yeah, some of us questioned that back in 1997.
UPDATE & CORRECTION: Apparently I got Lorrie McKay, who didn’t work on I-677, mixed up with Laurie Jinkins, who did. McKay, who was just hired by Washington Won’t Discriminate to run their campaign, left HOW before I-677 went down; according to Tina Podlowdowski, McKay opposed HOW’s efforts to put an initiative on the ballot. I apologize for slapping up a post slamming WWD for hiring McKay without getting my Lorries/Lauries straight.
Tangent: In high school, I volunteered with HOW working against several (eventually failed) anti-gay initiatives. At the time (1994 or so), HOW was based in the same space where the Stranger offices are now. I have envelope-stuffing déjà vu every so often.