For lack of a sugar daddy, Eyman comes up short

Any number of lessons may be drawn from the failure of the drive to refer to voters the state's new law banning discrimination against gays and lesbians. The legislation took effect last week.

Some may see Referendum 65's demise as confirming Washington's reputation as a liberal bastion, or as one of the least-churched of the states. Mainline churches, Protestant and Catholic, were not part of the anti-gay movement, and evangelical fundamentalists are not yet strong enough to pull off a referendum without outside help.

Proponents didn't really get much from the Republican Party, which declined the chance to endorse the referendum in its party platform adopted last month. The closest the platform came was some rather innocuous wording: "All people are entitled to be treated equally by government. The use of quotas or preferences to favor one person or group over another violates that principle, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the laws of the State of Washington." This language would cover only the most extreme explanation of the new law, that it grants gays a positive advantage rather than a level playing field.

Republicans in Washington state are trying to pull away from the religiosity of the president and his Bible Belt base, and their top candidates for office this year are not running as born-agains. Gay marriage continues to lurk as a red-meat issue, depending in part on an upcoming state Supreme Court ruling, but it won't be on the ballot.

The Washington anti-discrimination law does not cover gay marriage, but the referendum was conducted by Tim Eyman and others as if it did. Whether people saw through the deception, or simply don't care, is hard to determine.

The mating of Eyman and conservative religious leaders was an odd coupling from the start. The pastors are serious about sex and gender matters, in contrast to Eyman, who cannot resist a photo-op and played the fool during the campaign by appearing in costume (although never in drag).

There is also the business about misrepresenting the measure, which in the case of churches would amount to the sin of lying. Presumably, this would give many churchgoers some pause before embarking to collect signatures.

The lesson I would draw is that successful petition drives require money to hire people to circulate petitions, and only those with a truly compelling message can get the job done with volunteers in an age of political apathy.

Eyman failed largely because there was no sugar daddy to pick up the tab for his salary and operation and hordes of paid petition-circulators. What success he has enjoyed in his several attempts in recent years has been in campaigns with a financial payoff for people or business, providing money to pay for a professional campaign. He failed on a prior social-issues effort, the anti-affirmative-action initiative later picked up by John Carlson, who has his own radio program to flog the issue.

This year's anti-gay-rights measure ran on the volunteer efforts of conservative churches, which is a lot closer to the original spirit of the referendum than the practices of Eyman and other professionals.

Church efforts had to rely on parishioners not only signing the petitions but getting neighbors to do the same.

It is one thing to work up some outrage when in the company of fellow believers, and quite another to ask a stranger to sign a petition directed against one segment of society. He or she could turn out to be "one of them" or the mother or brother of a gay person. It takes a certain amount of cynicism to campaign against the rights of others, often unknown to you, making this sort of campaign best suited for those who are paid by the cynical.

When it comes right down to it, what was lacking in the referendum drive was money to overcome the reluctance of believers to test their beliefs in the public square, where they might encounter neighbors who regard their beliefs as bigotry.

If the referendum had gained the backing of two or three large businesses or rich individuals, it might well have gained the necessary signatures through paid circulators.

But there was nothing in this effort for business — quite the contrary, in fact. Gay employees and customers understand how to make themselves heard.

Eyman's future as the unelected leader of the right wing would seem to depend, therefore, more on his ability to hitch his organization to the well-heeled, rather than the ideologically inclined.

Floyd J. McKay, a journalism professor emeritus at Western Washington University, is a regular contributor to Times editorial pages. E-mail him at floydmckay@yahoo.com