I got MassEquality and KnowThyNeighbor’s emails that they have the public ballot init signature lists for the anti-gay-marriage petition, and I thought it would be a good thing to let readers in my town know what politicians here signed the damn thing.
Here’s the post I did on my own blog.
So – bloggers, readers, and people of good conscience – go check and see if your pols are listed! Be sure to use KnowThyNeighbor’s search function to check the street address of the name to the address of the pol in question (sometimes there are more than one person with the same name in one town, ya know!).
MassEquality (shows all by town, then by alphabetical)
KnowThyNeighbor (completely searchable by last name, first, address, city, etc)
Please share widely!
Only elected official on there is City Councillor Gus Foote, who is not one of the movers and shakers of Gloucester politics.
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None of our major conservative politicians signed this, much less any of our moderate or liberal politicians. This despite the fact that much of our conservative leadership is Roman Catholic (like so much of this city) and that organization was the leader in this initiative.
now realize that KnowThyNeighbor isn’t even close to the kind of things that the reich… eh, sorry… right wing comes up with on a daily basis?
I was the one who called KTN a “terrible idea.” I still think the idea of dialing up your neighbors to find out who opposes same-sex marriage is a bad idea, and liable to be abused — an “attractive nuisance”.
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However, the idea of looking up elected officials is different. That’s completely in bounds, I would think. Also in bounds would be checking up on oneself to make sure that one’s signature was not fraudulently gathered.
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So it may be that this site is serving a different purpose than what it was intended for, which is good. That doesn’t justify the original intent. I beg beg beg folks to use the site cautiously and with good judgement, understanding that using the internet to find private citizens to berate is bad practice and doesn’t further the cause.
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Are we good?
As you can read on my new blog ( http://proginma.blogspot.com/ )I suggest that you take this list to the next level and not just look for elected officials, but see how many neighbors you know! See how many people you associate with or are friendly with would support discrimination. I found 10 people in Framingham and they’re all getting a personal email, and their names displayed on my blog.
Migraine, that’s a bad idea. I hope you’ll reconsider. That’s not going to help folks come around to the right position — instead, it makes you look like an asshole, and will harden their position.
OK Migraine, since you’ve already sent out your emails and posted the names on the web, let’s hear what kind of results you get from your neighbors: Are you able to change their minds? Did they reconsider? Or are they hardening their positions? Honestly, I’d love to be proven wrong.