Voting to reject SB688/Referendum 71 is vital to preserving our liberties and our culture. Some have attempted to argue for SB688 on the basis of fairness that marriage benefits should be extended to those who are not in a marriage relationship. There is a reason that successful societies reserve certain benefits to a family headed by one man and one woman who are in a life-long committed relationship according to the biblical concept of marriage. A stable home environment created by two people who have the character to commit to one another as husband and wife benefits society. Arrangements other than this weaken society.
SB5688 gives government sanction to behavior that traditional values identify as immoral, no matter how you try to spin it. We have been veering farther from traditional values in marriage and other areas of behavior for at least a few generations and the empirical evidence of the result should be obvious to any person capable of processing reality. The number of messed up people in our communities and the danger to our children are truly heartbreaking. Popular cultural influences make it difficult for us to hold our families and communities together. Instead of supporting strong families, our current legislature is trying to incentivize through SB5688 an even worse social environment.
Rejecting SB5688 is not about being unfair to anyone; it’s about patriots upholding marriage, protecting children and determining the direction of our culture. SB5688 would drastically change our society because if your children are in public schools you could not protect them from the forced indoctrination that perversion is normal and the disorientation of the youngsters that would inevitably result. A majority of the legislators voted down amendments that would allow you to opt out your children on religious grounds.
The unstated purpose of SB5688 is to criminalize speech (and thoughts, now that hate crime legislation passed) of those who oppose normalizing immorality. Why else would Sen. Ed Murray, primary author of SB5688, write the following regarding those who oppose giving marriage status to same-sex couples? “The law should be enforced just as when either King or Gandhi engaged in civil disobedience. Both ended up in jail despite the righteousness of their cause.”
Our politicians will certainly redefine traditional standards as equivalent to racism. Teaching biblical morality would be a criminal offense. The real target, of course, is biblical influence that results from religious liberty and our Kitsap legislators are taking aim. The rest of our liberties would fall soon after passing SB5688. Do you think our politicians who passed SB5688 in the spirit of “fairness,” without allowing a vote by the citizens and in the face of overwhelming opposing testimony, will come to your defense if you are prosecuted for not hiring someone whom you judge to be disruptive and unable to relate to clients? Of course not. Examples of such persecution are numerous where similar laws were enacted. Our liberties in the long term depend on rejecting SB5688/R71.
David Simpson
Kingston
