As soon as the Defense of Marriage and Family Again (DOMFA)
campaign rolls up to the secretary of state’s office in Salem carting
referendum petitions—which they hope will have enough valid
signatures to put two recently passed gay rights laws up for a public
vote—teams of gay rights volunteers will mobilize.
One group, organized by Basic Rights Oregon (BRO), will be on hand
“to monitor the signature verification process,” explains BRO’s Bryan
Boyd. “We’ll have people at the secretary of state’s office looking
over their shoulders, ensuring that the signatures are correct.” If the
volunteers spot any anomalies, “we’ll bring it to their attention and
make sure that they’re not certified.”
DOMFA needs to turn in 55,179 valid signatures by September 26 to
put either issue—domestic partnerships for same-sex couples, and
non-discrimination legislation—on the November 2008 ballot.
Groups like Concerned Oregonians, a coalition of evangelical
Christians, are currently mining the state for signatures, to assist
DOMFA in the referendum effort [see Feature, pg. 14].
As soon as the secretary of state’s office and BRO volunteers are
done combing over the signatures, another group is poised to grab
copies of the petitions, and log every name and address into a
searchable database at knowthyneighbororegon.com.
The group—started by “a number of queer folks,” explains
spokesperson Jenn Stewart—is modeling their effort after a
similar one in Massachusetts launched in 2005. There, knowthyneighbor.org published the
names and addresses of roughly 120,000 people who signed a petition to
ban gay marriage or civil unions—a move that stirred up plenty of
controversy. Here, “a bunch of rabble-rousers in Portland decided to
see what we could do in Oregon,” Stewart says.
She explains why: “If people are willing to take a stand against
rights of other people then they should be willing to stand behind
their signatures,” she says. “It’s incredibly important that you know
whenever you sign something, what you’re signing and what they’ll be
using the information for, and if it’s public domain.” These petitions,
she points out, are public info.
“Plus, there is a lot of petition fraud, and we’re trying to monitor
that,” Stewart adds. If someone believes their name landed on a
petition—and Know Thy Neighbor’s site—erroneously, they can
speak up. (In Massachusetts, people could send in an affidavit if they
believed they were victims of petition fraud; PDFs of the affidavits
are linked to names of those who filed them. Some of those who filed
affidavits explained that a signature gatherer tricked them into
signing the petition, while others simply say that they didn’t know
what they were signing.)
In addition to holding petition signers accountable, Stewart
explains the underlying idea behind the project’s name, Know Thy
Neighbor. “To me, it’s important as a queer woman to be able to look up
people and see, are the people in my neighborhood on this petition? Are
there people in my zip code on this?” she says. Finding out that people
she knows—like friends or coworkers or even a boss or local
business owner—signed the petition is valuable information, “if
for no other reason than protection.”
And discovering that gay rights activists “have to do more education
or work” in a certain zip code, for example, can help with the campaign
against the referendum.
“We’ve got our eyes forward going into this campaign, and everything
we’re doing is preparing for this,” BRO’s Boyd says, adding that he’s
glad knowthyneighbororegon.com is
taking on such a daunting project. “We’re not involved, but we do
believe that petition fraud is a really big issue. We are more than
happy to have this watchdog group assist in monitoring that.”