Lock & Load

Brother will you pay me to sign?

Here’s an interesting titbit of information sent to me by my American friend Brian who lives in Massachusetts and who is following the fight to preserve the equal marriage rights for gay and straight people in that State. It’s from the KnowThyNeighbor blog.

It seems that the Right-wingers are bussing in unemployed people from out of state, sending them off to shopping malls and paying them $1 per signature to get antigay initiatives onto the ballot.

Even more cynically, they’re doubling up. First they stop a member of the public and ask them to sign a seemingly innocuous petition to allow alcohol to be sold in supermarkets (hardly a Right-wing priority, which is why it is all the more dishonest), then, while the person has the pen in hand they ask them to sign a second ballot petition in support of “traditional marriage”.

The company that employs these out-of-state folk is itself an out-of-state company. This begs the question: who is behind trying to scuttle equal civil rights in Massachusetts?

For the full story, see: Government BUY the People.

The blog is a compendium of interesting information about the battle over marriage. For example, in another story, they reveal that a Catholic priest was removed for speaking out against the right-wingers initiative.

"The priests of this parish do not feel that they can support this amendment. They do not see any value to it and they see it as an attack upon certain people in our parish, namely those who are gay."

His superiors didn’t agree. According to a report in the Boston Globe, the priest’s "hands were slapped very publicly".

posted by Brett Lock @ 11:12 am