WASHINGTON STATE: Second Anti-Gay Referendum Fails To Make Ballot

As we've discussed here previously, anti-gay groups had hoped to confuse Washington state voters with two different anti-marriage referendums. The first, R-74, asks voters if they want to uphold the recently passed marriage equality bill. The second, I-1192, asks voters if they want to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman. The great news today is I-1192 failed to raise the required number of petition signatures.

The citizen initiative that would spell out that marriage is only between a man and a woman won't qualify for the November ballot. Its sponsor, Stephen Pidgeon, of Everett, says Initiative 1192 is more than 140,000 signatures short ahead of Friday's deadline for turning in petitions to the Office of the Secretary of State in Olympia, and he concedes it won't happen. "I hate to say it, but we're just not going to cross the threshold. We're not going to make it. This measure is not going to be on the ballot," Pidgeon said of I-1192.