California Marriage Foes Fail in Signature Drive
Is anyone in the gay press really buying this tripe? I can't believe that no one is putting two and two together.
Call me a conspiracy theorists...
No matter how liberal the state of California may be, it would not be difficult at all for a group to collect around 590,000 signatures on a petition to ban gay marriages. In a state with over 35 million residents there are more than enough social conservatives to get a half million signatures in a very short period of time.
It wasn't that they couldn't as much as they didn't want to...at least not yet.
If they had made this deadline the initiative would have been slated for a July ballot, and therefor would have had no collateral effect of boosting voter turn out for conservative candidates running in a statewide or national election.
Don't forget, there are TWO anti gay marriage amendment petitions making the rounds. Each trying to get a place on a ballot. Although there has been much hoopla about how the two camps are fighting each other don't think for one minute that they don't have the same goals; 1) to outlaw gay marriage and 2) to rally the conservative base in order to elect more socially conservative candidates. Mark my words, one petition drive will make the April '06 deadline to make it onto the November 2006 ballot, for statewide mid-term elections and Arnold's reelection bid. The other one will miraculously come up with enough signatures just in time to make it onto the ballot for the National election in November 2008.
The state and national Republican party is playing this like a fiddle. It's got Karl Rove's dirty little fingerprints all over it.
[ December 28, 2005, 10:01 AM: Message edited by: UMRebel/Bucfan ]