Election Night '09: Ken Hutcherson, Larry Stickney, and a Former Hippie Tell Me Why R-71 Should Go Down in Flames
Party: Reject R-71
Larry Stickney addresses the press.
Location: Holiday Inn, Everett
Mood: Cautious. R-71 was winning by a pair of points
Drink of Choice? That's a good question.
Larry Stickney walked out of the Reject R-71 effort's party -- off limits to members of the media -- and told reporters lingering in the hallway of Everett's Holiday Inn that the notion that R-71 was about partnership rights and not marriage was "the biggest fraud perpetuated on the state of Washington yet. We believe this is gay marriage. Because it ultimately will be. We've been saying it's marriage all along."
Sure, supporters of the Stickney-orchestrated opposition to Washington State's domestic partnership law claimed their concerns lie in the law's potential as a stepping stone to gay marriage. But it was obvious last night that the heart of the opposition is about protecting themselves and their children from "homosexual behavior" in the classroom, at home, and everywhere in between. It's got nothing to do with marriage.
Same-sex marriage, and perceived steps in its direction like approval of R-71, are the most mainstream and accessible pegs to which anti-gay activists like Stickney can hang their hat. Forget legislated rights of partnership or marriage, Stickney doesn't even believe same-sex couples should be raising children.
"We don't believe it's the best place to raise children," he says. "We believe in the traditional family, that the mother and the father is the best place. And that's why we continue to promote the traditional marriage as the very best place. It's still the best, and it's the one we should defend. We don't need to let every flavor of the month group come in and raid the institution for benefits and entitlements."
Here's what a few other voices had to say, Tuesday night, about their opposition to R-71:
Victor Chebotarev, 24, Renton via the Ukraine: History's always been husband and wife and the kids. But if it's going to be mom and mom, dad and dad, (kids) probably might get confused in life and get life wrong.
Pastor Ken Hutcherson, a leader of Reject R-71: Even if we win, we're ready for another battle. Because the final battle is marriage. And I wish that the homosexual community would quit lying about it, go ahead and put it on a ballot, and put it up for a vote. Let's vote for it. Quit playing games.
If they don't go for marriage are you still going to fight to overturn this?
Oh, yeah.
But you say it's about marriage so why would you keep pushing to overturn it?
Because I want them to know there's opposition for the things they're going to do to work toward marriage.
But, if they don't go for marriage in the next session, are you still going to fight to overturn this bill?
Well, I think that we're going to fight to overturn anything that goes toward marriage. Why wait for the cobra to bight you. Get rid of the cobra before it gets out of the cage. Every state, every country, every nation that has passed these laws, marriage has suffered, families have suffered.
How have they suffered in the states that have legalized marriage?
Do you know how bad marriage is happening in the Netherlands?
What about in the other states in the United States?
Well, look at Canada? You don't have to go that far.
How is marriage suffering in the states that have legalized same-sex marriage?
I think the number one thing you see is that a lot of people that go to those states aren't from those states, are they? A lot try to go to those states to get married to take it to other states. And what we're saying is, look, you want to come to Washington, we're gonna fight. Let's go ahead and do the real fight.
So, the problem is that if it was legal in Washington then people would be coming here from out of state to get married?
Absolutely. You don't have to be a citizen in the State of Washington do you, to come and get married here? That's why they wanted to come to the State of Washington in the first place.
Maggie Reich, 53, Port Orchard: Rejecting this isn't rejecting benefits, it just says go back to the table, and do it without redefining marriage.
So, you don't oppose benefits for same-sex couples?
(Pause) No.
So, if this was to be the end of the line and it didn't go on to gay marriage, you wouldn't oppose it?
I don't think so.
It doesn't sound like you're opposed to same-sex partnerships so much as same-sex marriages?
Yes, but where I have difficulty then is when it's taught in the schools. If you teach about homosexuality, you discriminate against the people who don't want that taught to their children. If you don't teach about homosexuality, you discriminate against the homosexual community. There is no middle ground, because once it's taught, it's taught.
So, you don't believe it should be taught, or you do believe it should be taught?
I don't believe it should be taught, because it's a conflict of moral perspective. And for the people who can't afford to take their kids out of public school ... what are they gonna do?
Do I hate people who are practiicing homosexual behavior? No. I have friends who are that way.
(A few minutes later, Reich comes back.)
What I see is that the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. That people who are saying you need to be tolerant, are not tolerating my opinion, you know? They're saying we should respect each other, we should love each other. And, I stood on corners waving signs and the opposition was ... I was glad that my children weren't younger hearing what was said to them.
I was not always conservative.
Really?
I grew up in the '60s in the San Francisco Bay area.
What happened?
I realized that you can't just do whatever you want whenever you want. There are boundaries. Every culture has to have boundaries. We really can't do whatever we want, whenever we want, and however we want. And I certainly tried.
Any backlash at work when you asked people how they felt about R-71?
No. Because, they like me. I've earned respect over the years. But, the tables are turned.You're not free to speak. Not if you're a conservative. I've never been, too ... quiet.
3 comment(s)
Lonnie says:
Remember Maine: Full Federal Equality Now!
By SHERRY WOLF
IN STARK contrast to the surge of pro-LGBT activism, and legislative and legal progress in recent months, Maine voters overturned equal marriage rights on Election Day by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent.
Voter turnout of nearly 50 percent, local efforts by 8,000 volunteers—many of them straight—and a national blitz of phone banking to try to sway Mainers to uphold equal marriage was not sufficient to retain same-sex marriage in that state. Maine’s Question 1—similar to California’s Proposition 8 that reversed same-sex marriage rights in that state exactly a year ago—once again placed civil rights on the ballot, this time in an off-year election.
In Washington state, a new law that greatly expands the rights of LGBT couples—though doesn’t grant marriage itself—was approved by voters, but by an unexpectedly narrow margin of 51 percent to 49 percent.
The failure of the same-sex marriage forces in Maine’s No on 1 campaign to retain marriage equality passed earlier this year by the legislature highlights four central problems: 1) Civil rights activists are weakest outside of urban areas where the financial and institutional resources of the right can dominate rural politics; 2) President Obama and the Democrats have failed to deliver on their promise of “fierce advocacy” of LGBT civil rights; 3) LGBT rights must be enacted into law by the federal government; and 4) Civil rights should not be reduced to election fodder to be manipulated by well-financed bigots.
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NATIONWIDE, LGBT activists scrambled in a monumental effort to try to stop right-wingers in Maine from succeeding in what was often termed a “mini-Prop 8” effort that relied on money from the Catholic Church and blitzed the media with lies about how gay marriage would be taught in the schools and imposed on religious institutions.
Local groups will assess the No on 1 organizing efforts in coming weeks, but suffice it to say that despite what appears to have been an energetic and collaborative campaign, equal marriage has lost in every state it has been put to a popular vote—31 in all. Despite the fact that the No on 1 campaign, Protect Maine Equality, raised $4 million and the anti-same-sex marriage forces raised only $2.5 million, the strategy of statewide ballot initiatives plays to activists’ weaknesses, especially in non-urban areas.
In addition to the purposely confusing language used by the right in these initiatives—voting “yes” denied equality, voting “no” would have retained it—larger population centers create opportunities for activists to reach people in groups, as in Portland, Maine, where the vote was an overwhelming 73 percent against Question 1. At University of Maine’s Orono campus, 81 percent of students voted against taking away equal marriage rights, also showing the generation gap that persists on this question.
Similarly, in Washington state, it was urban King County that voted overwhelmingly for the “everything but marriage” referendum, while the less populated eastern part of the state voted against it.
Just three weeks after the massively successful LGBT National Equality March that drew more than 200,000 people demanding full federal equality now, conservatives are punching back. Right-wing bigots like Pat Robertson have attacked recently enacted federal hate crimes legislation, saying, “The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from speaking out on certain moral issues.”
In the face of this hostility and legal challenges, the Democrats have been passive at best and hostile at worst. The White House and Congress have failed to deliver so far on promises to reverse decades of legal discrimination in federal and state laws.
When Attorney General Eric Holder was asked about Maine’s Question 1, he said that he and President Obama “are of the view it is for states to make these decisions.” Holder later said to one blogger, “I don’t really know enough about the referendum over there to comment.” As National Equality March organizer Cleve Jones said on MSNBC of President Obama’s silence on Question 1, “This is a far cry from the fierce advocacy he promised us in his campaign.”
Even more outrageous, not only did the Democratic National Committee (DNC) refuse to help finance the No on 1 campaign, but it expressed crass indifference to LGBT rights when the DNC’s organization “Organizing for America” (formerly known as “Obama for America”) e-mailed Maine voters the day before the election about getting involved…in the gubernatorial contest in New Jersey (which lost)!
The failure of the Democrats to hold onto huge gains made in the 2008 election in New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races—and the flaccid response from Obama’s base in this off-year election—reveals that the inability of the Democrats in power to deliver on their promises is alienating progressives.
“President Obama and his team were zero help in this critical battle, and in the last week might actually have hurt us,” said David Mixner, long-time Democratic Party activist and initiator of the call for the National Equality March.
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MAINE’S REVERSAL on marriage equality proves once again the bankruptcy of the state-by-state, issue-by-issue strategy upheld by many establishment LGBT forces. This approach concedes that civil rights must remain on the precarious turf of the states, in a country where one Constitution is supposed to guarantee equal protection under the law.
Activists can no longer accept that LGBT civil rights can be attained outside the federal government. Even if Maine voters had rejected Question 1, most marriage rights like Social Security are only gained through the federal government and married LGBT people in Maine, as in the equal marriage states, would have remained second-class citizens under the law.
The right’s strategy of placing LGBT civil rights on state ballots for a vote places the battle for human equality on an unstable and hostile terrain. Why should anyone have to battle in each locality for equal treatment in a country where the Fourteenth Amendment—passed after the Civil War!—guarantees equal protection to all U.S. citizens? Why should LGBT people have to repeatedly reassert that we are equal human beings in every state and municipality 45 years after the Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination?
Civil rights cannot wait for the approval of reactionaries. According to that logic, Blacks, too, should have waited for public opinion to catch up with their demands. But in 1968, one year after the Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage as unconstitutional, Gallup polls showed that only 20 percent of Americans approved of marriages between Blacks and whites.
The failure of Maine’s No on 1 campaign highlights why the National Equality March demand for full equality in all matters of civil law in all 50 states must continue to be the rallying cry of grassroots activists across the country.
This is the Week of Initiative called by Equality Across America, the national network attempting to gather these groupings to map out a national strategy to continue this fight. In cities and towns across the country this week, activists will be marching and protesting this defeat in Maine—and celebrating victories in Washington state and Kalamazoo, Michigan, where pro-LGBT referenda passed.
Remember Maine. Get out and organize for full federal equality now!
SHERRY WOLF is the author of Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2009) and was on the steering committee of the National Equality March.
Posted On: Wednesday, Nov. 4 2009 @ 4:46PM
guigo71@hotmail.com says:
the problem with this referendum campaign is that opponents of the referendum were depicted as being evil and those who supported the referendum disguised the propaganda as being pro-equality when it was really about marriage rights. If anyone dared to say anything against referendum 71 you were labled a bigot or prejudist against gay people when that isn't the case. I believe in the institution of marriage and wish this could have been preserved as a separete issue. Marriage is the foundation for a healthy society, one that cares for its children. I feel I was discriminated against for not being allowed to express my views out in the open without getting insulted by someone who sought to humiliate me in public under false pretenses.
Initiative 71 was the bigges fraud I have ever experienced in Washington in the last 21 years.
Posted On: Thursday, Nov. 5 2009 @ 10:55AM
Chris says:
"If anyone dared to say anything against referendum 71 you were labled a bigot or prejudist against gay people when that isn't the case" (sic)
I'm sorry, but if you were against ref 71 you -are- a bigot. It's not very difficult to grasp the concept that a vote of 'nay' is a vote to deny your fellow washingtonians their right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of HAPPINESS.
And really, what does this bill have to do with defining marriage? This is DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP bill. I recall arguments being made that if it was 'anything but the word marriage' it would be a-okay to the reich wing, but hey, now we see that is also patently false, and they just simply want to deny people their human rights, and just want someone they can treat as second class citizens.
DOMA still allows the bigot states to ignore marriages from other states all they want, so until that gets repealed (which it will... sorry bigots, time and reality go against you and your views) the 'sanctity of marriage' will be 'sanctified' in the armpits of this country.
It's people like you that fought against the slaves being emancipated, fought against the civil rights movement, and tried to deny blacks the right to vote and marry whom they wished. You will lose, time is against you. History will not be kind to you and your ilk.
Posted On: Monday, Nov. 9 2009 @ 1:57PM