Not an hour after gay marriage was officially signed into law by Washington State governor Chris Gregoire yesterday, Rick Santorum made a stop in Tacoma to meet with Republican legislators and church leaders.
That night, some raucous protesters crashed the rally. Three were tased by police when a scuffle broke out and eventually arrested. The rabble-rousers repeatedly shouted, “We are the 99%!,” hopefully drowning out Rick’s 45-minute-long speech.
Just in case, here’s a portion of it of it:
I know this is a very important day in Washington. And, in many respects, a sad day for many people. We saw the law signed into effect here in Washington State. But it is very important you understand what just happened in another place… The Ninth Circuit decided that anybody that disagrees with any of these
folks when it comes to the issue of what marriage is in this country, well, they are irrational. That’s what the Ninth Circuit said. They said anybody who disagrees with their decision to shoot down Prop 8 in California, they do so because they are irrational.
Really? The Ninth Circuit Court called people irrational in overturning Prop 8? Here we thought it just affirmed the notion that “the People may not employ the initiative power to single out a disfavored group for unequal treatment, and strip them, without legitimate justification, of a right as important as the right to marry.”
As for the protestors, we’ll accept any attempt to muzzle Santorum’s wrong-minded rhetoric. But maybe those folk should’ve joined the demonstrators shouting “Gay marriage is okay!” instead of whatever anti-corporate mumbo-jumbo they learned down in their hovels. Gay marriage was the issue of the day and the reason why Santorum came to the state, after all.
He was apparently also glitter-bombed—again— though no footage has surfaced yet.
With Santorum again surging to frontrunner status in the polls—and anti-marriage forces in Washington already gathering signatures to put the issue on the ballot in November—we might want to organize our protest actions a little more carefully.
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