Slow Start For WA Repeal Drive

The drive to place a repeal of same-sex marriage on Washington's November ballot has gotten off to a slow start.

On its website, Preserve Marriage Washington, the campaign trying to defeat the same-sex-marriage law, said it has collected 4,583 of the 150,000 signatures it needs by June 6; at least 120,577 of those must be valid for the measure to make it onto the November ballot. The site links to a number of permanent locations — churches, businesses and private homes — where people can go to sign petitions. Additionally, campaign volunteers are collecting signatures at political events across the state, said campaign manager Joseph Backholm. Petitions are likely to show up in church vestibules and foyers and be passed down the aisle during Sunday services.

According to the linked report, the state's largest gay rights group, Washington United, is not actively fighting the petition drive and is instead focusing on educating voters to uphold the marriage law at the ballot box. A separate effort by another group points out that 2009's Referendum 71 barely qualified for the ballot. That group has launched a decline to sign campaign against the petitions themselves.