Approve Referendum R-71
Except for a long-shot last-minute lawsuit, Referendum 71 is going to be on the ballot in November in Washington state.
This is a referendum to APPROVE the domestic partnership bill that the state legislature passed earlier this year, which grants all state rights associated with marriage except the word marriage to same-sex domestic partners and to a narrow class of opposite-sex domestic partners who can't get married without losing their federal Social Security benefits.
Supporters of marriage equality spent all summer trying to get people to decline to sign the petitions in favor of this referendum, as the law would have been retained without a vote. It is a travesty that basic civil rights can even come up for a public vote in this state or anywhere in this country. People put a lot of energy into opposing R-71 as a petition. But now that Referendum 71 is on the ballot we must vote to APPROVE it in order to support equal rights for all Washington citizens.
I don't post much to LiveJournal but I do occasionally comment, and the default picture on my account has now been changed to emphasize this message. Please feel free to borrow the image if you want; it comes from the official campaign sign on the site for Washington Families Coming Together. I know it's hard to read the small print but the important thing is the main message. Hopefully this image will be repeated enough over the next two months that everyone's sick of seeing it by the time they vote to APPROVE R-71.
For more information, please visit the Washington Families Coming Together site. They've got stickers (PDF), t-shirts and other swag, and sites on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.