Cleveland's DP Registry Goes into Effect

YEA! Cleveland anti-gay pastors were unsuccessful at collecting enough signatures to stop Cleveland from enacting their recently passed domestic partner registry. The measure required 11,000 signatures and they only had "a few thousand" today.

A group of local pastors working to repeal Cleveland's domestic partner registry failed to collect enough signatures to trigger a referendum ballot, the Rev. C. Jay Matthews said this afternoon.

The group, led by the Rev. C. Jay Matthews of Mount Sinai Baptist Church, needed to submit about 11,000 signatures by Wednesday to put the issue to a citywide vote.

Matthews said only a few thousand signatures were collected. He blamed the failure on a narrow time frame over the holidays.

"We knew it was going to be tough," he said.

Religious leaders now will focus on a maneuver known as an ordinance by initiative. It requires 5,000 signatures and allows petitioners to submit legislation to repeal the registry. That legislation could be placed before voters if the City Council does not pass it.

Domestic partner registries do little more than a tip of the hat to gay people in relationships. It is the municipal government saying, "Indeed, this is happening." Nothing more, except that it makes insurance companies that offer DP benefits a little bit more comfortable because now there is some documented proof of a relationship.

Apparently, this is so awful to people who don't like gays that they want to stop it. SO AWFUL. Because, you know, we're redefining marriage and all that.

This movement to stop the DP benefit would be like trying to ban dancing because it's immoral and leads to thoughst about sex. Oh wait...

On an unrelated note, my father just lost his job because the company he works for can't support the six people in the office. They had to let half the staff go. Will someone kindly do a referendum against further job losses? No? No? Oh. Sorry. I, for a moment, thought we were talking about things that mattered.