While a lot of gay rights supporters were freaking out last spring—when anti-gay rights activists were collecting signatures to repeal domestic partnership rights—Morning Fizz (an out-and-proud supporter of gay rights) actually urged anti-gay crusader Larry Stickney to move forward. We had this to say:

Gays should be psyched about this initiative. When it loses this November, it’ll be that much easier to pass a gay marriage bill in the legislature. Hurry up guys, get those signatures.

I don't know if 52.55 to 47.45 counts as "trounced," (that's what the Fizz predicted), but man did the anti-gay rights folks shoot themselves in the foot.



Read our entire editorial—which urged gay rights leaders to get behind the R-71 signature drive. It's below the fold.

I think we were on to something.

Back in 1997, my former boss at the Stranger, Dan Savage, was totally right about something called I-677.

I-677 was a gay rights initiative that a group called Hands Off Washington put on the ballot. Their initiative would have extended workplace protections to gays and lesbians. To the surprise of many, Savage, a gay rights icon back then too, objected to the initiative. His argument: It’ll get trounced, which will make it much more difficult to pass a gay rights bill in the legislature.

He was right. I-677 got trounced (60-40) and gay rights stalled in Washington state for a decade.

I remember crowding around my desktop computer in 2005 with Amy Jenniges (a gay  Stranger news reporter), Sandeep Kaushik (a Stranger news reporter who’d done some amazing reporting on the gay rights bill that year) and Dan—listening to the vote as the gay rights bill went down in flames. Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-35, Shelton, Bremerton) didn’t vote with his gay-friendly party because, he said, his district had spoken against gay rights. In 1997. Sigh.

The gay rights bill finally passed the following year and despite threats from the social conservatives to mount a popular campaign to repeal it ever since, that has not happened. Tim Eyman failed to gather enough signatures to even put a repeal on the ballot.

I’m only bringing this up so I can urge  Savage to surprise his fan base once again. There’s bluster from the right this year about running an initiative to repeal the recent domestic partners legislation that makes gay and lesbian couples equal under the law. Savage should chill about it and even welcome the group to go ahead and bring their anti-gay rights initiative to a vote. He should do this for the same reason he opposed bringing the pro-gay rights initiative  to a vote 12 years ago: It’ll get trounced.

As we saw yesterday when Sen. Arlen Specter’s announced that he’s switching parties (pre-saged here in Washington in 2006 and 2007 with GOP defections of our own), the hard right is out of synch with the times.

Gays should be psyched about this initiative. When it loses this November, it’ll be that much easier to pass a gay marriage bill in the legislature next April. Hurry up guys, get those signatures.