Observations

Bob Foote, a master LAN administrator for King County, makes the final adjustments to one of 10 computers at the Recorder’s office…Foote has been gathering and preparing extra computer equipment since even before the election, anticipating the passage of Referendum 74 and the rush to get marriage licenses.

Gay marriage tech support!  The best kind of tech support.

I made the mistake of watching the house floor discussion on the gay marriage bill.  Rep. Hargrove, you’re an ass.  Using a Jack in the Box commercial to prove that gay marriage is bad?  Really?  Also, you are not the parent of your entire state, to tell them whether or not you approve of their choices.  That’s a ridiculous reason to impose your And you don’t seem to understand that the undercurrent of your entire argument - that gay parents are inferior to straight parents - is nothing but fearmongering and bigotry.  You do realize, sir, that studies have shown that that hypothetical parent with two mothers is actually happier and better off than the one with straight parents, right?  Of course not.

And good for your family for not having a divorce.  I feel sorry for your relatives that died of AIDS, because they probably died feeling rejected and unaccepted by their family as well.

And all of you people throwing God into your speeches like I throw salt on my fries: you do realize that you can’t just cite God as reason to make laws, because we don’t live in a theocracy, right?  And you realize that “traditional marriage” that you just harped on a million times is actually rife with polygamy, incest, forced marriage to rapists, and all kinds of things you would abhor?  And that “traditional marriage”, until less than half a decade ago, didn’t include interracial marriage?

I just can’t.  Thank God this is Washington, and we have enough people who have their heads on straight in our house, and this will pass and get signed.  And, if I can be a little optimistic given that R71 passed pretty handily a few years ago, it will pass the people’s vote as well.  And Washington will stand firmly on the side of equality, and gays will get married, and all these “personal moral objections” and “religious convictions” (thank you for calling them out, Rep. Marko Lilas) will fall apart as they realize that the gays are just like them, and children of gay families are just like them, and there is no threat except to their own misconceived theology.

Rep. Lilas, you make everything better.  Thank you for being wonderful.  Your speech was wonderful and sensible and covered all the bases and just yes.

If you want to join, you can do so here.  But I’ll warn you - Rep. Overstreet is up, and he’s off on a theological tangent where he has already name-dropped Jesus twice and “truth” an uncountable number of times, and is trying to make a logical argument and failing miserably.  He started by insinuating that we didn’t define marriage in the first place.  Heh.  Silly person.  I’m out, I can’t handle any more of this.

The bill made it out of committee today, and there are some priceless quotes.  In particular, Rep. Matt Shea was on a roll.  There is supposed to be a video, but it’s not up yet, so I just have to rely on the article.

I sit here as a Christian…This country was based on religious liberty not sexual liberty.

I think this guy needs to look up “religious liberty”

This will be the first time in the history of our country where we are giving people that horrible horrible choice [of choosing between their consciences and their business interests].

The first time?  Really?  The first time people have had to give up their biases and misplaced bigotry in order to make a buck?  I mean, come on, Ron Paul said just this year that the Civil Rights Act was bad for businesses.  You can come up with better “horrible horrible” things.

[Tried to add a clause] so we don’t treat Christians and others as second class citizens.

Right, because it’s okay for the gays to be denied recognition of lifelong commitment, but it’s not okay for Christians to be denied the right to discriminate against people based on in-born traits.  And we definitely need a clause granting blanket immunity “from any civil claim or cause of action” remotely relating to gay marriage.  Fortunately the amendment didn’t make it through.  

If it had, I’d have to demand my own immunity clause for fundamentalist Christian marriages - because lord knows (if ze exists, ze most certainly does) that they cause far more damage to this country than the gays ever have.

He also wanted to put a one-month residency requirement “to make sure our marriage laws are not abused.”  Because couples flying to our state to buy hotel rooms and wedding locations and food and wedding planners and generally spend lots of money is just the worst thing that could happen right now.

But I’ll end this post with a happy, quote, from Rep. Eddy: “We ought to acknowledge that we also heard of communities of faith that support this bill.”

Thank God (and G-d, and Allah, and whoever else is applicable) for that.