Gay Adoption Foes Won’t Seek Vote Citizen’s Alliance Head Says He’ll Try Measure As Initiative, Where Legislature Could Make It Law

The backers of an initiative to block state-arranged adoptions or foster care by gay people and unmarried couples say they won’t try to put the measure on this year’s ballot.

Instead, Sam Woodard, head of the Citizens Alliance of Washington, says he plans to refile the measure in March as an initiative to the 1996 Legislature. In that form, the measure could become law without a public vote if passed by the state House and Senate.

The “Hard Time for Armed Crime” Initiative 159 and the controversial property rights Initiative 164 are two such measures being considered by the lawmakers this year.

Woodard said it would be too difficult for the group to gather the more than 180,000 required signatures of registered voters by the July deadline to get a spot on the November ballot.

In fact, the initiative he is now calling off was just a ploy for attention, Woodard said.

“We used the process,” he said. “We intended to file an initiative to the Legislature all along. The media wouldn’t talk to us unless we had an initiative. You can’t raise money without a product to sell.”

Gay rights advocates say it doesn’t matter how Woodard offers his initiative - neither the Legislature nor the people will support it. Washingtonians simply don’t want to legislate discrimination, said Robert Harkins, a spokesman for Hands Off Washington.

“These are initiatives that have been brought to us by out-of-state forces. They’re not in line with Washington’s values,” Harkins said.

Backers of Initiative 608, which would have prohibited the state from expanding civil rights protection to include homosexuals, failed to gather enough signatures to get on the ballot last year.

But Woodard said times have changed and lawmakers might be more likely to approve the adoption restrictions by next year.

“I had two senators go out of their way to shake my hand the other day,” Woodard said. “Last year they’d cross the room to avoid me. There’s a real change down here in Olympia.”

March 8 is the first day groups can file initiatives to the 1996 Legislature. After filing, the Citizen’s Alliance would need to gather more than 180,000 valid signatures by late December.