Homosexual attack on free speech

They want to target those who sign petitions they don't like

"This Thursday in a federal court in Washington state, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle will, ahem, settle an important question... Specifically, Judge Settle must resolve whether Washington state’s Public Disclosure Act, requiring the Secretary of State to publically disclose the signers of petitions, violates First Amendment protections for voters signing a petition. That is, does it violate the rights of those signers not wanting to be threatened or intimidated . . .

“There have been few precedents on whether the names and addresses of people who sign petitions should be considered a public record,” wrote Ballot Access News editor, Richard Winger, recently. “Some states provide by law that the records are not public, but most states do not.” Thus, in most states, any citizen could request (and pay for) copies of the actual petitions turned into the Secretary of State, containing all the names and addresses and often other personal information.

Enter Brian Murphy. He started a website — WhoSigned.org — in essence to “out” the signers of Referendum 71 petitions. He pledged to create a searchable database of all those people who had signed the referendum petition and he encouraged supporters of the domestic partnership legislation to have a “dialogue” with those who had signed the petition.

Unsurprisingly, some petition signers became more than a little concerned about the nature and tone such a dialogue might take. Larry Stickney, the head of Protect Marriage Washington, which sponsored Referendum 71, accused opponents of taking “the politics of personal destruction to new levels. I am a personal recipient of dozens of obscene and threatening e-mails and phone calls since we filed this.”

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Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).