Washington’s Catholic Governor Announces Support for Homosexual Marriage
EDITOR’S NOTE: Please join me in welcoming John Barnes as a guest blogger for CatholicVote.org.
Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire
Earlier this week, with the internets abuzz over the Iowa Caucuses, Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire announced her support for redefining marriage to include homosexual couples. Gregoire, a Catholic and a Democrat, said: “It’s time, it’s the right thing to do, and I will introduce a bill to do it.” (You can read her speech here.)
The move makes political sense for Gregoire, who has in recent years alienated much of her base by refusing to kowtow to public employee unions. Few things motivate the Democrat political base on the west coast more than creating additional social programs and granting the government’s blessing on people’s various pelvic adventures. The former requires tapping a public treasury already in the red, but the latter costs little more than the lawyers’ time to revise the statutes. What’s more, Gregoire has nothing to lose politically since she has decided not to run for a third term this year.
This coming Monday, the state’s part-time legislature will convene a regular 60-day session (background that will serve non-Washingtonians no purpose other than fodder to impress people at a cocktail party: the state legislature meets regularly for 105 days in odd-numbered years, and for 60 days in even-numbered years. They can convene special sessions as well). A bill to redefine marriage will likely drop early in session so the public hearing and vote-gathering process can begin. Lawmakers will likely craft it in a way that allows churches to decide whether or not they perform homosexual marriages, which will stimy some (but by no means all) potential religious opposition. Without seeing the details of this legislation, I suspect it will pass the 98-member House of Representatives easily but could stall in the 49-member Senate, where Democrats have a narrower majority.
But it’s not even that simple.
There are more than a few senators who won’t necessarily fall into lockstep with their party leadership. Democrats such as Sen. Jim Hargrove (D-Hoquiam), Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-Potlatch), and Sen. Brian Hatfield (D-Raymond) represent socially conservative districts and could oppose redefining marriage. Moreover, a few Republican senators hail from districts close to Seattle and claim the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal/moderate” mantle. It remains to be seen how Sen. Steve Litzow (R-Mercer Island, and a Catholic), Sen. Andy Hill (R-Redmond), Sen. Joe Fain (R-Auburn), and Sen. Cheryl Pflug (R-Maple Valley) would vote. There may be additional senators in either party who swing the vote one way or the other.
Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle), a Catholic and one of Washington's six openly homosexual state legislators.
Ed Murray (D-Seattle), a Catholic and one of the legislature’s six openly homosexual members, has taken the lead on such issues in the senate. He chairs the powerful Ways and Means Committee. “I can get Republican votes for gay marriage, but I can’t get a Republican to vote for raising taxes,” Murray observed. He knows what he’s talking about. It was a Republican state senator in 2006 (Bill Finkbeiner of Kirkland) who provided the key vote to pass a bill giving homosexuals the same protections that racial minorities, women and religious groups get under the state Civil Rights Act.
Proponents of traditional marriage were lampooned as paranoid wingnuts when they claimed the 2006 measure was part of an incremental agenda that had redefinition of marriage as its ultimate goal. Yet just three years later, the legislature passed a bill granting “domestic partnerships” all the rights of married couples. Once again, many lawmakers, the local intelligentsia, much of the media and others scoffed at the claim that the “everything but marriage” bill was another tumble on the slippery slope to the redefinition of marriage.
In 2009, proponents of traditional marriage fought back by triggering the referendum process against the “everything but marriage” bill. Washington is one of the 24 states that allows voters to repeal a law by gathering enough signatures to have it placed on the ballot during the next general election. In order to qualify for the ballot, the state constitution requires referendum sponsors gather enough signatures equal to at least 4% of the votes cast for governor in the most recent general election. In 2009 that was 120,577, and sponsors turned in 122,007 valid signatures by the deadline. The measure to repeal “everything but marriage” for homosexual couples became Referendum 71.
The brouhaha over R-71 at once fit and defied expectations. The campaign to uphold the law garnered support from major local businesses like Microsoft, which gave $100,000. Most major newspapers endorsed the measure, which was framed as a matter of fairness and equality. In November, R-71 passed (meaning voters upheld the law) 53% to 47%. A defeat for traditional marriage, no doubt, but in a state that considers itself on the cutting edge of “tolerance” and progressive politics, those numbers were surprisingly close. What makes them even more noteworthy is the fact that R-71 opponents outraised defenders of traditional marriage by nearly 17 to 1 and outspent them by nearly 6 to 1. Most savvy politicos on both sides thought the margin would be much wider, although voter turnout in an off-year election like 2009 can be skewed due to a sparse ballot and/or the particularly heated nature of what is on the ballot.
The Catholic bishops of Washington state opposed the 2009 “everything but marriage” bill and R-71, stating officially:
Referendum 71 sought a statewide vote on Senate Bill (SB) 5688, which was passed by the 2009 Legislature. SB 5688 commonly known as the “everything but marriage” law granted all of the rights of marriage to same-sex couples in Washington State. The bishops of Washington State opposed SB 5688 and opposed Referendum 71, because its legislative sponsors specifically stated that the law is part of a strategy to legalize same-sex marriage. While upholding the dignity of each individual person and opposing unjust discrimination, the Catholic Church is steadfast in its teaching that marriage is a union of one man and one woman.
The Washington State Catholic Conference, representing the state’s three bishops, testified against the bill in the Senate and House of Representatives. Absent any available public records, I’m inclined to assume the conference asked Governor Gregoire to veto the bill. Just how strongly they did so is a matter for speculation. I confess a tinge of cynicism in my blood when it comes to politics here, so nothing leads me to believe the conference did anything other than issue some sort of predicable, boilerplate statement to the governor. In the same way Catholics are taught to remember Providence transcends time, I hold out hope that the archbishop (Alexander Brunett in 2009) made some sort of direct, personal plea to Governor Gregoire that she veto the bill. Statements like this from the Catholic Conference that seem to put the sanctity of the traditional family on the same level as tax limitation mechanisms don’t fuel such hope. At the end of the day, the Washington State Catholic Conference is far more interested in lobbying to expand social entitlement programs than anything else. Issues such as abortion, traditional marriage, or physician-assisted suicide (which Washington voters legalized in 2008), take a back seat or are given no real priority in the conference’s legislative agenda.
Should the legislature pass and governor sign a bill redefining marriage this year, and defenders of traditional marriage begin a referendum campaign, R-71′s election results make it clear that the homosexual activist agenda isn’t a foregone conclusion in Washington state. It would be a hard-fought campaign. I suspect a lot of folks who supported or ignored R-71 did so lackadaisically, accepting “everything but marriage” because in their minds it wasn’t actually marriage. A fine line, for sure, but a line nonetheless. No such line would exist this year. Activists bent on redefining marriage are counting on what they perceive to be a gradual shift in public opinion over the last few years. A referendum on a law redefining marriage will test that bet.
But because this is Washington, it gets muddier. If legislators attach what’s called an emergency clause to a bill redefining marriage, that bill cannot be subject to referendum. Defenders of traditional marriage could attempt to place an initiative on the ballot that would change the law, but the signature threshold would be significantly higher — 241,153 instead of 120,557. No small feat in a tight timeline. The most strident enthusiasts for a bill redefining marriage will push for an emergency clause, but legislators know the public and media pay attention to such things and so there will be closed-door debates on that point. Washington may indeed be a “left coast” state, but its voters and political watchers have an affinity for clean, open, and honest government.
If one takes a purely political glance from afar, Washington looks like an awfully blue state. Many on the inside feel that way, too, especially veterans of the political/policy world who have waged and lost countless candidate and issue campaigns against entrenched statist interests. But it’s not that simple.
Sen. Ed Murray’s aforementioned remark about having Republican votes for redefining marriage but not for tax increases is true, but only by half. The plain truth is neither Murray nor his House budget counterpart, Rep. Ross Hunter (D-Medina), can get all of their fellow Democrats to vote for tax increases. It is far easier for Washington state’s legislature and governor to work across party lines and redefine marriage than pass even a modest tax hike. That’s quintessentially Washington state.
Chief among the question marks I see in the upcoming debate over redefining marriage in Washington is how the bishops will engage. All three dioceses here have new shepherds:Archbishop J. Peter Sartain in Seattle, Bishop Blase Cupich in Spokane, and Bishop Joseph Tyson in Yakima. A great many Catholics here have expressed hope that the new archbishop will be much more vocal in the public square about the life and family (i.e., the non-negotiable) issues than the previous archbishop.
Sartain is well suited for the monumental task of articulating the Catholic faith to Washington’s uniquely secular/agnostic/materialistic culture. His episcopal motto, “Of you my heart has spoken,” strikes at the core of the profound cultural challenge. Sartain understands precisely what Pope Benedict XVI meant in Deus Caritas Est:“Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” Bringing the Gospel to the public square and engaging the culture in Washington means not painting Christianity as a set of rules, doctrines, or philosophical propositions. It is difficult to preach salvation to people who believe there’s nothing from which they need to be saved.
On a drive with my wife the other day, we chatted about the challenge of authentic Christian formation in our area, particularly the challenge of raising children (we’re newly married and have yet to conceive). This Simone Weil quote came to mind: “The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.” Just as Christian parents must teach their children to recognize the profound hunger in their souls, so must the Christian disciple articulate the faith in a culture that has convinced itself it has no need of anything it cannot create.
Archbishop Sartain speaks of the faith as a lived relationship that springs first from the recognition of a profound desire within, and my hunch is that message will resonate well in this area. The brewing battle over redefining marriage presents him with a gift-wrapped opportunity to bring the Gospel to the public square and engage a culture on the verge of codifying an affront to civilization’s fundamental building block — the traditional family.
John Barnes writes from Washington state, where he works in communications and public policy. He holds a graduate degree in history from Utah State University and did his undergraduate work at Hillsdale College. After college, he resisted the siren call beckoning so many of his fellow graduates to Washington D.C. or New York City. Rather than seek fame and fortune in the political or economic heart of the empire, he chose to return home to its western hinterlands, and there he is content to spend the rest of his days.
