Supreme Court Set To Hear Gay Rights Case

BY CARLOS SANTOSCOY 
PUBLISHED: APRIL 27, 2010

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether Washington state officials can release the names of signers of a ballot measure that sought to repeal a gay rights law.

The high court agreed to hear the case in January after Protect Marriage Washington appealed a 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that ordered the release of nearly 138,000 signatures that put Referendum 71 on the state's ballot last fall.

The ballot initiative asked voters to accept – or reject – an expansion of an existing domestic partnership law approved by lawmakers that gave gay couples all the rights of marriage. Voters opted to keep the law dubbed “everything but marriage” by the media.

Opponents say releasing the names would put signers at risk of harassment, reprisals and boycotts of their businesses, amounting to an unconstitutional infringement of free speech rights.

Gay rights groups announced early in the campaign their intention to make the names public via the Internet.

Under Washington state law, names of people who sign petitions become public record after the Secretary of State verifies a petition, but Referendum 71 names have remained sealed pending the court's decision. State officials argue that the names should be released because signers are acting in place of lawmakers, who do not approve laws in secret.

“What the anti-gay groups are attempting to do is get a sweeping constitutional rule that will allow them to continue to operate in secret in terms of ballot measures all across the country,” Anne Levinson, chairwoman of Washington Families Standing Together, the gay rights group which campaigned to keep the state's domestic partnership expansion, told the Seattle Times.

The outcome of the case – Doe v. Reed – has the potential to affect laws in two dozen states that allow citizens to put measures on the ballot.

The Supreme Court has also agreed to hear a second case that stems from a gay rights action. The case concerns shielding the identities of defendants in January's first federal case to challenge the constitutionality of a gay marriage ban. In that case, gay rights opponents have also said that they fear reprisals if their views are made public.

While rulings in neither case will affect gay rights legislation directly – the cases deal with questions of free speech and privacy – they could provide early clues as to how the court might rule on several gay rights cases wending their way through the federal system.

All three cases involve the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry and are expected to reach the Supreme Court within the next couple of years. The state of Massachusetts has sued the federal government because the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) blocks married gay couples from accessing federal benefits. A case that originated in California asks the Supreme Court to invalidate Proposition 8, the state's gay marriage ban. And a third lawsuit, filed by Boston-based gay rights group GLAD, also challenges portions of DOMA, but would have limited effect beyond Massachusetts