making public opinion, well, public.

[rmd]

knowthyneighbor.org is planning on listing everyone who signs the petition to put an anti-gay-marriage question on the ballot:
The Petition, #05-02, Constitutional Amendment to Define Marriage, reads as follows:
"When recognizing marriages entered into after the adoption of this amendment by the people, the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall define marriage only as the union of one man and one woman."

i'll be curious to see if other groups start doing this with petitions they don't agree with, and whether it'll have a chilling effect on controversion topics.

on the other hand, there was the scandal a few years ago where allegedly people signed what they thought was one petition (to outlaw slaughtering horses for human consumption) only to have the paperwork shuffled around and it was actually an anti-gay marriage petition. something like this would enable people to check whether they'd signed the petition they thought they had.

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah, the fact that it's already public info is why i'm not immediately against it. it's part of a trend of information that used to be public-but-hard-to-get-to becoming public-and-easily-available. i'm still conflicted about some of it, tho.

and certainly, i've signed petitions that i don't agree with in the interests of putting things on the ballot. i don't generally think that basic civil liberties should be up for popular vote, tho.