Judge Blasts GOP Lawmaker In Anti-Gay Petition Fraud Case

Posted: July 21 2007 - 4:00 pm ET

(Cincinnati, Ohio) A Republican lawmaker behind an unsuccessful bid to repeal Cincinnati's ordinance protecting gays from discrimination has been accused of knowing names to get the issue onto the ballot in 2006 were fraudulent.

Two women working on behalf of Equal Rights Not Special Rights have pleaded guilty to election falsification.

State Rep. Tom Brinkman, who was the head of the organization was never charged, but at a hearing the judge in the case suggested he was involved and knew that Lois Mingo, 48, and Precilla Ward, 32, had falsified the petitions by crossing out names and addresses of signers and replacing them with addresses of registered voters in order to make them appear valid.

"It's terrible," said Judge Robert Ruehlman from the bench. "It takes away the right to democracy. It takes away the right for people to decide issues when you cheat like that."

Like Brinkman, Judge Ruehlman is a Republican.

Brinkman denies any wrongdoing.
"I personally did not touch a single address or date or signature or name or anything," he told the Associated Press.

Mingo and Ward, who worked for an outside firm hired to collect the signatures, were charged following a seven-month investigation.

Equal Rights Not Special Rights had collected thousands of names on petitions to have a repeal measure put to voters last November. But when it emerged that many of the signatures were fake the group voluntarily withdrew the measure. (story)

More than 7,600 signatures that were validated by the Hamilton County Board of Elections but the phony names were discovered during a second check before a challenge from Restore Fairness, a pro-gay rights group, was to begin before the Board of Elections.

Among the phony signatures were "Fidel Castro" and Cincinnati Reds owner "Bob Castellini."

Mingo and Ward could receive up to a year each in prison when sentenced Aug. 20 but are more likely to get probation, prosecutors told the AP.

City Council passed the ordinance in March, 2006 (story) adding gays, lesbians, and the transgendered to Cincinnati's human rights law covering employment and housing.

The move followed a vote in 2004 repealing a restriction in the city charter that blocked Cincinnati from passing any LGBT rights laws. The charter had been amended 14 years ago after a similar gay rights law was passed.

Equal Rights Not Special Rights, which had orchestrated that amendment, immediately set out in March to overturn the new ordinance.

Isn't that something? Not only are these people upset that they can no longer discriminate against gays and lesbians, not only were they leading a charge to reinstate legal discrimination against gays and lesbians, but they were willing to BREAK THE LAW to do it.

As I said in the ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) thread on this forum, the homophobes appear to be trying every legal avenue they can find to make life hard for gay people.

Clearly, as evidenced here, that effort occasionally extends to "greasing the wheels" a bit as they move down those legal avenues. It's at times like this we see their true agenda: Law be damned, those gay people are icky, and must be stopped!

Maybe they think that if they can just make it unattractive enough to be gay, gay people will give up, and choose to be straight instead. And everyone will live happily ever after. Or maybe they just hate us, and want us to suffer.

Either way, we will not be legislated (legally or illegally) away, as they seem to wish.

We will not rest until we have equal treatment under the law, and our resolve is not weakened by homophobic dirty tricks like this one in Ohio. They only serve to strengthen it.

Hmmm, maybe this could be connected to another case of petition fraud which centered around gay rights...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<obje...mbed></object>

This has more to do with the pay per signature petition drives than the issues.

Anytime you use hired help you face this problem, like Democrats encountered when they used pay per registration voter registration drives. That is how dead people in Chicago and St Louis were registered to vote.

Ban the companies that pay for signatures and make sure that any petition presented to the state for recall is done solely by volunteers. If there is no money, the likelihood of fraud will significantly decrease.

dmk

Haven't you got a "couple of homo's to put in a hot tub and turn up the heat to make homo soup" to get to?

I agree with you on this point. Both situations are heinous, and fly in the face of our democratic system.

Using only volunteers will force big money out of this process, on both sides.

Only the people most passionate about an issue or a candidate will go and knock on doors for free... taking the process out of the hands of the special interest groups, and bringing back down to street level, where it belongs.

Good idea, sgtdmski. Sounds like it's time for another round of letter-writing to our elected officials.


I disagree on this point, especially after watching the video posted by mikelew007. The issue clearly matters, because someone felt strongly enough about the issue to pay the bill for the signature-gathering company's services.

In this case, it seems clear that some homophobic, anti-equality group with deep pockets paid a signature-gathering company (who in turn paid the people with the clipboards) to knowingly break the law in order to attempt to reinstate discrimination against gays and lesbians.

These homophobes paid to have others do their dirty work for them, so they could remain hidden behind the scenes, and keep their hands and consciences clean, yet still achieve their homophobic anti-equality goal.

That makes them even more cowardly than the typical in-your-face homophobe.

Thankfully, their illegal plot was exposed in time, and this homophobic ballot initiative was withdrawn. (Though I have no doubt they will try again.)

Since homophobia is not a crime, I am doubly glad that election falsification is. What a shame that these rotten people will most likely only get probation for their crimes.

And what a shame that the homophobes who funded this travesty will live to fight equality another day.

Thanks for posting the video, Mike!

Let us also not forget about the failed petition effort by the anti-equality homophobes in Massachusetts, trying to repeal gay marriage in that state.

Yet another case where homophobes were caught red-handed falsifying signatures on their petitions.

It's bad enough that they are trying to legislate us out of existence in the first place... but it's incredibly hypocritical of them to use illegal tactics in pursuit of changing the law.

Sort of makes you wonder... if they have been caught this many times, how many times have they NOT been caught?

How many of the state anti-gay marriage laws and amendments passed in recent years were put in place with help from homophobes employing "extra-legal" means?

I will definitely agree that the pay-per-Sig (PPS) can create this problem, but one must legitimately recognize that getting enough volunteers to do a job can be difficult.

In most situations, the PPS does not create an issue. At the same time, I would like to see that any campaign or drive that USES PPS should be required to disclose this and a review of the signatures take place based on that alone.