Mormons Lining Up On Both Sides Of The Marriage Fight In Washington State; Opponents Of SB 6239 Campaign For Referendum 74

In February 2012, the Washington State Senate passed SB 6239, which was the last legislative step needed to legalize gay marriage in the state. Governor Christine Gregoire has signed it into law. Thus the "Evergreen State" could end up becoming the "Everqueen State".

However, traditional marriage advocates are just beginning to fight. A group called Preserve Marriage Washington believes such an important question deserves to be decided by direct democracy rather than indirectly by lawmakers. So they've drafted Referendum 74, or R-74 for short. While Preserve Marriage Washington is opposed to gay marriage, R-74 would merely ask voters to vote Yes or No on SB 6239; they would respect the outcome. They provide powerful justification for their position HERE. They have obtained 105,780 signatures on their petitions as of this post and they need a baseline of 120,577 valid voter signatures in order to qualify the referendum for the ballot, but are striving for 150,000 signatures by May 31st in order to provide a cushion for invalid or duplicate signatures. The text of R-74 appears below:

According to a couple of stories about this issue in Religion Dispatches and Mormons for Marriage, both of which are biased in favor of gay marriage, there are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints involved with Protect Marriage Washington. In February, Joseph Backholm of the Family Policy Institute of Washington and John Paulton of Focus on the Family met with LDS Church leaders in Washington state. It is unknown what was discussed or agreed to at the meeting, or which church leaders attended. However, in Religion Dispatches, Scott Holley discloses that a letter about R-74 has been read in some Washington stakes — but not all, so he's not sure if it came from Salt Lake City or not — and the letter encouraged members to vote for the initiative but instructed them not to use ward contact lists for campaigning or to say they were campaigning or voting on behalf of the LDS Church. The letter even specified that the letter itself should not be printed or distributed, only read by bishops to congregations.

Arising in opposition to Preserve Marriage Washington is a group called Washington Mormons for Marriage Equality. Unfortunately, they don't have the courage to make their Facebook page available for public viewing; you have to be a Facebook member to see it. But according to Willapa View, one of the characteristics of this group seems to be the desire to emphasize the social justice aspects of Jesus' teachings as something that can be aligned at least with the socially liberal views on compassion and acceptance among many members of the LDS Church.

However, Sarah Long does misrepresent those who oppose gay marriage in Washington state. She claims that forbidding civil gay marriage means forbidding people from choosing. That's an outright lie -- people can still choose to pair off and play house, regardless of gender. They can still draft and sign the appropriate agreements and powers of attorney to ensure proper distribution of their worldly goods in case the worst happens. What gay couples cannot do is get such a relationship legally described as marriage. Gay marriage advocates also disingenuously claim that marriage is a "civil right", despite no supporting evidence or language in either the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

Makes you wonder what else Washington Mormons for Marriage Equality is hiding behind that "members-only" wall on their Facebook site.