{"id":2003,"date":"2010-06-26T07:02:52","date_gmt":"2010-06-26T07:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=2003"},"modified":"2010-06-26T07:02:52","modified_gmt":"2010-06-26T07:02:52","slug":"an_interesting_decision_by_the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=2003","title":{"rendered":"An Interesting Decision By The Supreme Court That Will Probably Be Further Scrutinized"},"content":{"rendered":"

The information for this story comes from CBN News<\/a> and Washington Post<\/a> articles that were posted on Friday.<\/p>\n

Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that people who sign referendum<\/font><\/a> petitions should not expect to have their names kept secret.  This sounds like a really good idea–open government, transparency, etc., but there are some problems.<\/p>\n

CBN News reports what recently happened in California with Proposition 8:<\/p>\n

\n

“The group known as Protect Marriage Washington organized the petition drive in an effort to give the public a chance to vote on repealing the state’s domestic partnership law.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Gay rights activists then asked the state for the petitioners names. The request left some feeling uneasy in light of what happened in California after the Proposition 8 campaign. <\/em><\/p>\n

“The Golden State’s gay rights activists targeted churches and individuals who supported overturning gay marriage. Vandalism and job threats were common. Some even faced death threats.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If transparency in a specific instance results in danger for ordinary citizens, is it something we want?<\/p>\n

The Washington Post reports:<\/p>\n

\n

“”There are laws against threats and intimidation; and harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance,” Scalia wrote in a separate concurrence. “Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.” <\/em><\/p>\n

“Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. He said the state’s decision to disclose the names on all petitions is unconstitutional “because there will always be a less restrictive means by which Washington can vindicate its stated interest in preserving the integrity of its referendum process.””<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I guess I am just on the minority side of this.  Until the safety of petition signers can be guaranteed (which it never can), I want signatures to be validated by the Attorney General of the state involved and not made public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The information for this story comes from CBN News and Washington Post articles that were posted on Friday. Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that people who sign referendum petitions should not expect to have their names kept secret.  This sounds like … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}