If you’ll recall, last week a Massachusetts gay rights group released a searchable database of the names of the 84,000 Arkansas residents who signed the petition to put Act 1 on last year’s ballot. To refresh, Act 1 was the measure that prohibits adoption or fostering a child by unmarried people who live together in Arkansas.
The group, KnowThyNeighbor.org, created the database that can be filtered by Last Name, First Name, Address, City, Zip and County and even shows the signature of everyone show signed the petition.
Outrage ensued and not surprisingly, The Arkansas Family Council, which made a strong push in favor of Act 1 is now considering asking Arkansas lawmakers to hide petitioners’ names from the public.
Why anyone who’d be bold enough to put their John Hancock on a legal petition would be afraid of other people finding out about it is beyond me, but so is the popularity of that show The Hills … and my wife loves it.
KnowThyNeighbor insists that the database was created merely to “generate the dialogue between both sides of this issue.”
One Arkansan has taken that statement to heart. “In the fairness of this ‘responsibility and dialogue,’ I feel it is fair to know who some of (the) primary opponents of Initiated Act 1 (are),” writes Jason Tolbert on his website, The Tolbert Report.
Tolbert created his own online searchable database but this one includes the names and addresses of those who contributed to Arkansas Families First, the group organized to oppose Initiated Act 1.
I’m not sure the impact of a list of 300 people who obviously are not in favor of taking away American citizens’ rights will be all that explosive but hey, fair’s fair I guess.
In case you’re wondering who all from Fayetteville donated to help fight Act 1, the folks at Fayettevillage Voice have already singled them out for you.
[Via Arkansas Project]
