Editor,

Barbara Bailey, running for re-election to our 10th Legislative District Senate seat, is quoted as saying that “people don’t have the right to question her” concerning her religious views about LGBTQ people.

The quote was in reference to Ms. Bailey’s previous votes and sponsorship of House and Senate bills intended to limit the civil and human rights of the LGBTQ community.

You are wrong, Sen. Bailey. Voting citizens do have the right to question your religiously-based decisions, efforts and votes, particularly when you use them, as you have done, to limit our constitutional rights by singling us out for discrimination in accessing public goods and services, in limiting transgender people among us access to public bathrooms and opposing LGBTQ adoptions.

Enough is enough, Sen. Bailey. Stop using LGBTQ people as a political wedge issue to gain votes, especially now that gay marriage is legal in Washington state by a vote of our state Legislature.

You do not have the right to inflict your religious views on everybody else.

Religious beliefs are essentially a personal decision. As such they have no place in providing a rationale for legislative votes designed to limit the civil rights of certain groups because those groups are not held in favor by a particular religious doctrine. The First Amendment to the Constitution makes that very clear.

If Barbara Bailey and the Republicans continue to control the state Senate they will in the coming months attempt to roll back the human and civil rights of the LGBTQ community that are now legally protected.

If you believe, as we do, that all of us are equal under the law, then we encourage you to vote for Angie Homola, Democrat, for the state Senate who will serve all of the people of the 10th Legislative District.

Michael Ferri and Jim Sherman

Coupeville