Referendum 71 backers gather 138,000 signatures (Shame on WA signers) Anti-gay benefits

The odds seemed almost insurmountable. In late May, a consortium of religious conservatives set out to collect enough signatures to put a referendum on the November ballot repealing the final piece of the state's domestic-partnership law that would give gay, lesbian and some senior-citizen couples the same benefits as married folks.

Gov. Chris Gregoire delayed signing the legislation as long as she could, eliminating roughly one-third of the 90 days referendum backers had to collect the 120,577 signatures needed.

Organized as Protect Marriage Washington, supporters lost even more time attempting the nearly impossible: fitting 114 pages of the bill text onto a single petition sheet — with space for a ballot title, referendum summary and 20 lines for voters to sign — and all big enough to be readable. On top of that, a group of gay-rights activists announced at the same time that they would publish online the names and addresses of all those who signed Referendum 71 petitions — a tactic referendum backers managed to temporarily block last week in federal court.

Despite it all, and working shop fronts and music festivals, church congregations and the occasional Sunday morning pulpit, referendum backers in the end turned in 137,689 signatures to the secretary of state....

The signatures are being counted over the next two weeks to determine if there are enough to qualify the referendum for the ballot.

That the campaign got even this far shocked many — particularly those in the gay community who had done little publicly to counter it, and now are left to ponder: How did they pull that off?