Politics Jamie Pedersen
On Slog last week Annie Wagner wrote that we were having 43rd District Candidate Jamie Pedersen back for a second round of endorsement interviews because we felt sorry for him.
There’s no argument—Pedersen is a drip. But as Stranger Election Control Board member David Schmader pointed out, yesterday (the day the rotten WA Supreme Court gay marriage decision was handed down) was Pedersen’s “sad day,” both for personal and professional reasons. Certain members of our board suffered sympathy pangs.
While it’s true Pedersen didn’t seem to be in fighting form during our meeting—he barely used half his allotted time for a final statement—I want to set the record straight about something. As I said to my fellow Election Control Board members after the candidates cleared out of our conference room last Wednesday, I was leaning toward endorsing Pedersen—not just having him back, but endorsing him—because of the Washington State Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage.
Yes, yes: I slapped at Pedersen on Slog—and slapped at him hard—when his campaign volunteers were running around implying that Pedersen was the only candidate in the race who supported marriage equality. Everyone running in the 43rd supports marriage equality—they don’t have a choice. Pedersen and his supporters maintained that he was the obvious choice for voters who viewed marriage equality as their top issue, as Pedersen has worked on marriage equality for ten years now.
That argument didn’t move me—and I was even less impressed with the argument that Pedersen, as the only gay candidate in the race, had a right to the “gay seat” in the state legislature. It seemed perverse, if I may use that word, for gay and lesbians to run around arguing that the five other candidates in the race should be discriminated against based on sexual orientation.
But that was then.
I expected the WA Supremes to rule against us—and I said so on Slog—but I didn’t expect their ruling to be such an affront. The ruling was staggeringly dishonest and thoroughly chickenshited. The Supremes found that the legislature had a “rationale basis” for discriminating against same-sex couples (it somehow encourages heterosexual sex and procreation); they found that gays and lesbians were too politically powerful to be considered a suspect class (getting an anti-discimination bill passed after three decades of struggle was somehow evidence of our political power and proof that we didn’t need the courts to protect our civil rights); and they found that homosexuality was not necessarily an “immutable characteristic,” which is #1 on the religious right’s list of anti-gay talking points.
Then, after all that, the justices had the nerve to beg the legislature to grant same-sex couples all rights that the court itself was too cowardly to grant us.
Sitting in my office, reading through the decision, the case for sending Pedersen to Olympia became more compelling.
Like I said to my editorial accomplices last week, the WA Supreme Court smacked down same-sex marriage, abandoning its responsibility to protect minority rights, and punted this issue to the legislature. Regardless of Pedersen’s shortcomings as a candidate (and all of the candidates have shortcomings—as do all of the members of the Election Control Board), sending Pedersen to Olympia now would be a symbolic act of defiance. The voters in the 43rd would be not just be flipping off the Supreme Court by sending Pedersen to Olympia, we would also be sending this message to the legislature: “This issue is not going to go away.”
Opponents of same-sex marriage also oppose civil unions, gay rights laws, adoptions by same-sex couples—and on and on. They essentially oppose the very existence of gay people, but since they can’t eradicate us they’ll settle for stamping out gay visibility. They want us to cease loving each other, go back in the closet, marry opposite-sex partners, and drink ourselves to death—you know, like in the 1950s, the good old days.
When the haters win one—when they pass an anti-gay marriage amendment or defeat a gay rights bill or extract a favorable ruling from a court—they believe they’ve come one step closer to shoving us all back in the closet. So when they win one—and they won a big one last week—it’s important for us to shove back, to make sure they understand that this issue is not going away because we are not going to go away.
The Washington State Supreme Court handed opponents of marriage equality a huge symbolic victory last week. Voters in the 43rd can counter that symbolic victory with a symbolic gesture of defiance—that is, sending Pedersen to Olympia.
Anyway, that’s what I argued after our meeting with the 43rd District candidates last Wednesday. I believe I said, “If I had to vote today, I’d vote for Pedersen.” So that’s why we’re having him back—we’re really considering him, not just feeling sorry for him—and we may yet endorse Jamie Pedersen. If that happens, I wonder who will be more shocked: Me or Pedersen?
UPDATE: I intend to ask Pedersen why the decision isn’t being appealed, however. Alexander seemed awfully unsure of himself in our meeting with him, not to mention being incapable of defending his ruling, and anxious to see it appealed (probably just a dodge to shut us up, but we won’t know until we appeal.) Jamie says he’s a fighter for gay marriage—so why aren’t we fighting to the bitter end, Jamie?
I think you mean "NOT going to go away".