SEQUIM — Both sides of a controversial issue came face to face Saturday when more than 50 sign-waving protesters lined up along North Sequim Avenue in front of Sequim Bible Church to challenge the church’s support of Referendum 74 while church members solicited signatures on a petition seeking to place the measure on the November ballot.
The proposed referendum would ask voters to overturn legislation supporting same-sex marriage, referred to as the marriage equality bill, that was signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire in February.
The law takes effect June 7 unless R-74 supporters gather the more than 120,577 valid voter signatures needed statewide by June 6.
If they gather enough signatures, the law will be delayed pending the November election outcome.
“We see this as a moral issue, not a political issue,” the Rev. Dave Wiitala, pastor of Sequim Bible Church, has said.
“And we believe the people of Washington should have the right to vote on this change of the marriage law.”
Said one of the demonstrators, the Rev. Ruth Geiger, a retired United Methodist Church pastor from Seattle who now lives in Sequim with her partner: “The message of Jesus, the message of God, is loving everybody.
“Bigotry wrapped in prayer is not a part of that message,” she said, adding that she, like so many others in the gay and lesbian community, wants to get married.
While the quiet, low-key protest took place outside the church at 847 N Sequim Ave., a person carrying R-74 petitions waved motorists into the church’s driveway, where about 30 were gathered at a canopy to collect signatures.
A sign was posted for R-74 signatures at the driveway entrance. About 100 had been gathered by 2:30 p.m. Saturday, said Wiitala, adding that more than 700 had been collected since mid-March when petitions were distributed.
Wiitala said Saturday he attended a Friday night meeting at Trinity United Methodist Church in Sequim where marriage equality was discussed.
“I listened and asked them to keep calm” during the protest, he said.
“It’s really about the people of Washington getting a chance to sign the petition because people didn’t get a chances to vote on the issue” of same-sex marriage, he said.
Wiitala said he and his fellow Sequim Bible Church members were “doing everything we can not to make any negative comments” to protesters.
The protest was peaceful.
Wiitala passed out cold bottles of water to protesters, promising the day before to do so as Jesus would.
But some protesters, seeing the church’s position as anti-gay and a threat to their civil rights, argued that the church was not acting in the true message of Christianity.
“You don’t pick and choose when it comes to the message of Jesus,” Geiger said as she carried a sign that read: “Decline to sign. Jesus wouldn’t sign.”
Geiger said the Bible is mistranslated and that many passages are not followed; otherwise, people would never eat shellfish or cut their hair, which the Bible condemns as “abominations.”
She said there are no biblical reference to gays or same-sex marriage.
Jan Eadie, Christian education coordinator with Trinity United Methodist Church, said the church ran the film “For the Bible Tells Me So” at the program Friday night.
“There are Christians who support Jesus and support marital rights,” she said.
Darlene Kays, a retired Port Angeles school teacher, and her husband for 61 years, John, of Diamond Point joined the protest after a friend contacted them about it last week.
“To me, sexuality is a personal thing,” Darlene Kays said. “I don’t see why people get in a twitter about it. I want my kids to grow up to be tolerant of others.”
Her sign said, “Marriage is a civil right,” and her husband’s carried the same message.
Representing MoveOn of Clallam County, Andrea Radich said, “I support equal rights for everybody.”
She said she was there to support her gay friends who want to be married.
Elly Nauman, a Fairview-area resident who helped organize the event with her married partner, Nancy Avery, said she was pleased with the turnout.
Carol Hess-Davis, an Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship member in Agnew along with Nauman and Avery, said she was not gay but objected to church people telling others how to live their lives.
Sequim Bible Church member Jim Bower said the protest was good for the church because it gets people talking about the issue.
No counterprotest by church members was staged.
“This is the best advertisement we can get,” he said, gesturing to the protesters around the church’s driveway.
Sequim Police Sgt. Don Reidel stopped to warn protesters not to lean out into the road waving their signs, saying motorists had complained.
“People are worried they are going to get whacked” by signs, he said.
R-74 would put on the November ballot a vote to approve or deny Senate Bill 6239.
Wiitala helped church members write and purchase a full-page Peninsula Daily News advertisement that appeared May 9 and fueled the protest.
The text of the ad says in part: “Marriage between a man and a woman has been the principle for societies since history began and for our country since it was founded.”
The ad cites the federal Defense of Marriage Act passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996.
“Marriage is a special relationship reserved exclusively for heterosexual unions because only the intimate relationship between man and woman has the ability to product children,” the church said in the ad. “God calls active participation in homosexuality sinful and wrong.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2390 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
