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Decline to Sign succeeding beyond wildest expectations
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| Decline to Sign succeeding beyond wildest expectations | ||
| by Mike Andrew -
SGN Staff Writer Only a week into the "Decline to Sign" Referendum 71 campaign, "our numbers are going crazy," says Equal Rights Washington Advocacy Director Josh Friedes. "We're exceeding our wildest expectations!" "In the first 72 hours of the campaign, 7500 people took the pledge not to sign [Referendum 71 petitions]," Friedes enthused. "Now, at the end of the first week, we have 15,000 pledges." Referendum 71 was filed by a right-wing coalition on May 4. It challenges SB 5688, the Domestic Partnership Expansion Bill passed by the state legislature in April. Gov. Christine Gregoire announced she will sign SB 5688 into law on Monday, May 18. The signing ceremony will be held in Seattle, at the Montlake Community Center, 1618 E Calhoun Street, at 10:30 a.m. Opponents of domestic partnership rights will then have until July 25 to gather 120,577 signatures in order to qualify Referendum 71 for the November ballot. If the measure does make it on to the ballot, supporters of domestic partnership rights will have to vote YES to approve SB 5688. Three organizations - ERW, Join The Impact, and FUSE - launched the Decline to Sign campaign last week. They hope to prevent Referendum 71 from even coming up for a vote by persuading voters not to sign petitions essential to place it on the November ballot. The campaign launched last organizations' e-mail lists, asking recipients to pledge not to sign Referendum 71 petitions. "We had a fantastic response," said Join The Impact organizer Joe Mirabella, "especially in the first hours of the campaign. We were getting 100 new members every hour." According to the ERW's Friedes, FUSE has the largest e-mail list in the state, with over 100,000 addresses. FUSE is a progressive political organization affiliated with MoveOn.org. "Having FUSE participate gives us the opportunity to speak to people in the labor movement, the environmental movement, and others who we don't typically reach with LGBT lists," Friedes told SGN. Mirabella, whose Join The Impact organization was instrumental in organizing the huge post-Prop 8 demonstration in November 2008, also created a Facebook page, which now has over 5000 friends. "It's continuing to grow," he told says. "205 people signed up since this morning." Besides ERW, Join The Impact, and FUSE, the HRC and National Center for Lesbian Rights have also sent e-mails to their lists. The GSBA, NGLTF, and Legal Voice (formerly the Northwest Women's Law Center) have joined the campaign and are preparing e-mail blasts as SGN goes to press. "We're also talking to the choice community, Planned Parenthood for example," Friedes said. "We hope they will endorse the campaign very soon." "Before the Memorial Day weekend, we will also have Decline to Sign petitions and flyers that people can take with them to picnics and other events," Friedes promised. Besides the initial publicity value of such a visible campaign, organizers point to the long-term political benefits. "We're developing a really profound communications capability," says Mirabella. "Gay, straight, religious, not religious, we're talking to a whole range of voters." Friedes agrees. "It's exceptionally exciting to see all the new growth," he says. "It's not just existing members of ERW. There's been enormous, rapid growth in all our data bases." "It's quite possible that this threat will make us stronger," Friedes continued, "that it will enable us to build an even bigger, stronger coalition and achieve marriage equality earlier than we might have otherwise." The Montlake Community Center, 1618 E Calhoun Street, is accessible via Exit 168B off I-5. For more information, visit seattle.gov. |
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