Republican Washington State Representative Maureen Walsh’s explanation why she’s voting for gay marriage is worth a watch (via) if you’re sick of all the haters. Washington just passed a gay marriage bill that the governor has pledged to sign.
Reader Interactions
54Comments
Comments are closed.
slag
This isn’t a break. This is a reminder that we need to keep fighting.
Bulworth
Tyranny! /
ruemara
@slag: Amen
Suffern ACE
Just a reminder, though. The law is not going to go into effect because it is likely to be stayed pending a referendum. That will be on the ballot this fall. I know the public opinion polls are changing, but I feel eeriely like its 2008.
Also, I think New Mexico and Minnesota will be having their own little marriage definition amendments this fall. It will be a busy time.
jenn
Yay for her. Thanks for highlighting this – when she was talking about her husband dying, the love of her life, and how having had that, she couldn’t deny that bond to same sex couples, and her voice choked up … yep, I cried, I admit it. No idea of what her voting record might be on other issues, but she made the right call on this issue, and bless her for it.
Geoduck
Governor Gregoire should get credit for pushing for this; she’s not seeking re-election, and I guess she decided she may as well use her lame-duck status to accomplish something good and useful (and sadly controversial.)
efroh
Good for her, but I predict she’ll have a challenger in the next GOP primary.
Linnaeus
@Suffern ACE:
Good point, but I think we’ll win this fight.
MikeJ
@Linnaeus: Never underestimate the amount of Mississippi in Washington.
Linnaeus
@MikeJ:
Trust me, I’m trying very hard not to. I realize that things look very different when I drive just to the eastern part of my own county. That said, I think there’s a lot of momentum on this that will carry over into the referendum fight.
scav
@MikeJ: Or underestimate the amount of WA in MS for that matter. MS didn’t quite vote for the fetal personhood status.
Linnaeus
@efroh:
Walsh’s district is deep in Republican country, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she did face a primary challenge.
MikeJ
@Linnaeus: I hope you’re right, and I’m glad that it’s coming during a presidential election year when the less dedicated voters turn out at higher rates.
FridayNext
Does this mean these two can get married soon? They live in Seattle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vL8x7LcA-Y4
Suffern ACE
@MikeJ: Yeah. That’s what we said in 2008. And the next thing I knew, voters in CA went for granting chickens in Catalina larger cages.
Suffern ACE
Or Petaluma. Wherever the chickens were, they had more room. Marriage, not so much.
Geoduck
Fortunately for us Washingtonians, the redder a district gets, the less populated it also tends to get. The Seattle metroplex pretty much swamps everything. And boy, to the troglodytes get mad about it. (Not mad enough to stop taking that sweet tax revenue that keeps their infrastructure alive, of course..)
pseudonymous in nc
The uncharitable way to look at it might be that having a gay child changes how you think. But I’m not going there, because it’s obviously an act of honesty and political courage on her part.
This should, in an alternate and less crazy universe, be an issue that fits well into a Republican framework, because it’s about allowing people to sign up to a compact that is about the exchange of rights, responsibilities, benefits and civil recognition — that conservatives regard as socially valuable.
@MikeJ:
As others have said, one benefit of Perdue’s decision not to seek re-election in NC is that there’s a reason to turn out for the Dem side of the primary, which is when the bigotry amendment is on the ballot.
KG
@Suffern ACE: how does the law get stayed pending a referendum? More likely, the referendum would get stopped under the Perry rational.
Martin
@Suffern ACE:
Why would they stay it if the legislators pass the law? Why not put it into effect and then put WA under the same granted/revoked category as CA with respect to how the Prop 8 case gets ruled?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@pseudonymous in nc:
Unfortunately small-c conservative Republicans are an endangered species. Makes me wonder if we need to start breeding them in zoos. You know, to preserve the species for posterity.
sloegin
Having Olympia Dems actually voting Democratic may be a sign of a new age of wonders, but they still have a long way to go. Washington is still Mississippi-class when the unfairness of our tax structure, or lack of education funding is looked at.
This despite the fact that Washington is one of the richer per-capita states of the union.
gex
@Geoduck: That’s pretty much how it works. It really isn’t red state – blue state. It’s rural – urban. 18th century – 21st century.
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Apparently, those guys breed like pandas.
sharl
Something along the same lines came from the New York State Senate a couple years ago. A lovely speech on the NYS Senate floor on Dec. 2, 2009 by Sen. Diane Savino (7:33).
Arclite
@jenn: Shit, hard not to tear up. She’s getting to the very root of what it means to be human. Love for each other is the very core of why humans have been successful: it brings us together, lets us create together, lets us reproduce, build things, be prosperous. Yes, there are many other motivations, but love is at the core.
John O
I watched this and read the Gallagher article and can’t help but be struck by how much our personal experiences impact our political views. Maggie got spurned and will never get over it, and this lady has a gay daughter she loves.
You know, SHOCKING!, when the real world, life, if you will, colors our opinion.
Julie
@Linnaeus: It is Walla Walla, though, which has seemed to be evolving in whole lot of ways over the past few years what with the university, wine industry and influx of Californians, and all. It’s still red, but not as red as it once was.
taylormattd
@Suffern ACE: The polling is very good on this. Support for marriage equality here in Washington has been steadily growing for years, and it is up to around 55% now.
Linnaeus
@Martin:
The law would actually go into effect – once the governor signs it – 90 days after the close of the legislative session, which means early June. Once the governor signs it, opponents of the law can collect signatures to put a repeal referendum on the ballot. If they can get enough qualifying signatures (a little over 120,000) by June 6, the law is suspended until after the November elections.
There’s also a parallel move to define marriage as between one man and one woman. The process to gather signatures can begin right now, and they have until July to qualify for the ballot. This wouldn’t suspend implementation of the law, but presents another opportunity to overturn it in November.
Linnaeus
@Julie:
Yeah, I was thinking about that, actually. Maybe that’s one reason why Walsh thought she could support the bill.
ShadeTail
A conservative is a liberal who has not yet figured out how “it” (whatever “it” is) affects them personally.
I do not say this to cheapen Rep. Walsh’s stance. In fact, I say it for precisely the opposite reason. Understanding and acceptance comes from being exposed to reality and seeing it for what it really is. That is how we will win this fight in the long term: by having people become like Rep. Walsh.
taylormattd
@sloegin: It’s because we have no income tax, and every time someone brings up possibility of enacting one, a bunch of morons are allowed space all over the local TV, radio, and papers to speculate about how everybody’s taxes will increase. And it doesn’t help that the Times editorial board is comprised of a bunch of rich anti-tax crusaders. We have a state filled with people that are either completely uninformed about the nature of a state income tax, or don’t want one because they are wingnuts. Sigh.
Linnaeus
@taylormattd:
Fucking Blethens.
Midnight Marauder
@efroh:
Anyone in public office who wants to do anything good is going to get a Republican challenger during their next election.
We can’t keep permitting cowardice in our public officials just because our opposition is relentless in their assholery.
Villago Delenda Est
@Geoduck:
This is also the story in Oregon; Portland’s metro area rules the state, politically. Multnomah county (with a minor assist from Lane, where Eugene is) decides statewide elections. If you go to Wikipedia, look up the 2008 US Senate election and the 2010 Governor’s election, the maps of Oregon show everything but a handful of counties to be red. The thing is, that handful of counties have most of the poplulation.
Egg Berry
After reading about the contraception contretemps, I was struck by how frequent these little shit storms are on the right. I honestly don’t understand how anyone can keep up this level of pure spite over such long periods of time. You’d think they’d burn out or something. But it’s just one thing after another after another.
It tires me out just thinking about it.
JGabriel
OT. CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) is going on now, and they have dating tips for their wingnut attendees:
{Horrified expression}
Good God. They breed.
Dream on, buddy.
Some actual tips:
Just what a girl wants to hear: that you’ve got all the drugs that will a keep fat man hard while he stares at underage boys in the Dominican Republic.
“A gun club works really well for that kind of thing”? Really?
The saddest part here is the GOP’er admitting that a gun is the only thing he’s comfortable handling.
.
Villago Delenda Est
@JGabriel:
I think we all know what “good skin” means in this context, do we not? As in “not blah”?
taylormattd
@Linnaeus: They are a blight on the greater Seattle area, seriously.
Suffern ACE
@JGabriel: A Polaroid? So she thinks she’s getting an urban hipster. When does he plan on breaking it to her that he’s no such thing?
gwangung
@Egg Berry: Yeah, well, that’s their plan….
WereBear
@JGabriel: Dear heavenly lawd. And we wonder why they are so messed up… it’s because they are so messed up!
kc
Another reason this pisses me off: My ob-gyn tells me that birth control pills reduce the risk of ovarian cancer. Since both my mother and maternal grandmother died of ovarian cancer, I’m at some risk. Plenty of women are taking bc pills for reasons entirely unrelated to contraception.
Not that my contraceptive choices are any priest’s goddamned business anyway.
kc
Oops, I posted that last comment (@43) on the wrong thread. Sorry.
Got damn it, now I’m really made!
JGabriel
Sorry, folks, forgot to include the link for the above post on CPAC dating tips. Here’s the original article: CPAC Wants To Help You Get A Hot Conservative Date by Benjy Sarlin @ TPM.
.
JGabriel
@WereBear:
It’s terrifying, isn’t it?
.
MikeJ
@JGabriel:
I saw Jim Duckworth playing in several bands after The Gun Club broke up. Amazing musician.
I think seeing Gun Club would be a great date and I’m not even conservative.
aimai
Holy shit. I’m 51 and I’m married to the love of my life. I can’ t imagine being widowed at 51. That was a great speech. And something I’d like to point out is that although we might dismiss it by saying “oh, her daughter is gay so naturally she has come around” that really isn’t necessarily the case at all. There was recently a big article about Maggie Gallagher, the founder of NOM. She turns out to be 51 as well. In fact, she’s just two days older than me. The central struggle of her life is that as a young conservative woman she fucked a young conservative guy and he abandoned her as soon as she got pregnant. She raised that child as a single mother. Is she sympathetic to single mothers? No, absolutely not. Does she blame conservative fuckery for her oopsie pregnancy? Absolutely not. Does she support gay rights evven though her son (apparently) is probably gay? Absolutely not.
Give this woman some credit. She has really thought about her position on gay marriage–Walsh I mean–and she has come to support it not because it is convenient for her child but because she sees the golden thread winding through everything else she cared about in life in this issue.
aimai
SeattleKeith
The best tool we have to fight this is pointing out the sheer insanity of PUBLICLY exposing yourself as a bigot and supporter of discrimination by signing a petition that will post the names,addresses, and zip codes of those choosing to sign it. This is NOT about same sex marriage.. That’s already a “done deal”-executed by our elected officials.. This is purely about allowing a handful of very vocal religious extremists to inject THEIR beliefs into our laws. It’s just a license Folks! It doesn’t effect “straight” marriages in ANY way.. It just EXPANDS the definition of marriage- not “redefine” it.
pseudonymous in nc
CPAC is just a festival of live-action trolling.
Mnemosyne
@Suffern ACE:
Make sure the dumbfucks who ran the “No on 8” campaign here in California aren’t running the same campaign in WA. Seriously, when your primary TV campaign is basically, “It’s okay to hate gay people as long as you let us get married!” you’ve basically thrown the fight.
It also didn’t help that the proposition was written in such a way that you had to vote “no” if you wanted to allow gay couples to get married. I’m still convinced we lost a few thousand critical votes to confused voters who thought they were voting against banning gay marriage, not against allowing it.
boobpoop
funny how things can change your mind.
moving piece of film but follows pretty closely with the republican m.o. noted above by ShadeTall
“A conservative is a liberal who has not yet figured out how ‘it’ (whatever ‘it’ is) affects them personally.”
i’m unfortunately not as big a person and think it’s blind luck that uneducated bigots who have stayed sheltered in their cocoon of white privilege would experience anything as revolutionary as walking in the shoes of a minority or figuring out how something like medicaid could actually benefit them someday.
this woman doesn’t have a gay daughter, i highly doubt she’d be voting for this.
sloegin
@taylormattd: I’ve always thought that yes, it’s the “low information” voters, but I’m coming around to another view.
Consider, the poor and lower middle class Washington taxpayers who fork over 17% and 15% respectively in income to state taxes. Compare that to other states where that percentage of state taxes is in the 6% to 10% range. There’s no way an income tax will pass unless it’s part of a overhaul of all the other regressive taxes we have to balance out the burden, and is presented as such to voters.
Olympia Dems can’t seem to figure that one out. Or don’t want to.
SiubhanDuinne
@JGabriel:
Sorry. A Polaroid camera?
A POLA-fucking-ROID Camera??
Had me at POLA.