As the election map unfolded in the hours and days after the polls closed on Nov. 3, many in Pierce County were mortified to see what at first looked like a mistake.  On the Secretary of State Web site, county after county in the Puget Sound region turned green in support of Referendum 71, which confirmed domestic partnership rights granted to gay and lesbian couples by state legislators and Gov. Gregoire last spring, helping end a long tradition of unfair discrimination in Washington state.  But Pierce County - unlike Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish, King, Thurston, Kitsap, Jefferson, Clallam, Island and San Juan counties - turned yellow.  

Yellow, the color of weakness.

Social network lines lit up.  It seemed unthinkable.  While no one mistakes Tacoma for Seattle or Portland, it is easy to orbit the North End and downtown - to make the daily rounds between the doggy day care, the yoga studio and the wine bar - and forget that our city is not as forward thinking as some of its neighbors to the north and south.  It's easy to forget that Tacoma does not end south of 12th, or 19th, or even 38th, but spreads miles farther in a vibrant patchwork of cultures, races, religions, Moneytree franchises, and sketchy looking tanning salons.  It's easy to forget Pierce County stretches from Key Peninsula to Mount Rainier, covering 1,806 square miles, and that for every Stadium District there is a Buckley, and for every Proctor there is a Graham, and for every organic salad with balsamic vinaigrette there is a gas-station-deli chili-cheese taquito (thank goodness). 

It's easy to forget that these unlikely marriages make Tacoma Tacoma and Pierce County Pierce County - in sickness and in health, for better or worse.  And despite appearances, despite our sallow complexion amidst a verdant sea of pro-equality counties on the map on Sam Reed's wall, it worked out for the better in the 2009 general election.

"I actually look at it as a complete victory," says Laurie Jinkins, a Tacoma resident and co-chair of Washington Families Standing Together, the LGTB coalition that spearheaded the support-71 movement. 

Here's why: Today - Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009 - as this issue hits the streets the law officially goes into effect.  The battle for Pierce County may have been lost, but the greater war was won.  And that was the strategy all along.

Due to the nature of the modern day mail-in balloting process in which voters can begin voting weeks before election day, Jinkins and WAFST Pierce County chair Ryan Mello had just six weeks to promote their cause. This necessitated surgical strikes rather than the carpet bombing a longer campaign and fundraising period might have afforded.

"We knew that when we had a six-week campaign, our strategy was not to win every county.  We knew we needed about a million voters.  In Pierce County, we knew we just wanted to keep it close," says Jinkins.  "It was really about getting people who were already supportive of domestic partnerships to go vote."

Many of those people lived in Tacoma, and especially in the North End, where residents voted hugely in favor of Referendum 71.  County wide, 82,189 folks voted to approve the measure.  Though more than 90,000 others opposed it, the 82,189 Pierce County votes were enough to help put Referendum 71 over the top statewide, where it passed by a margin of nearly 113,000.

"I'm extremely proud that (Tacoma) overwhelmingly passed Ref. 71," says Mello, whose group of volunteers logged roughly 240,000 phone calls, sent thousands of mailings, and carried signs on the streets despite cold weather and, more bothersome, the vitriol of the county's dickheads, assholes, douchbags and pricks who joined forces to harass Referendum 71 supporters.

Proud, but not satisfied.

"It's good to be reminded that that still exists and people are willing to hate," he says of a small but disturbing number of locals who taunted, crowded and in some cases assaulted Referendum 71 sign wavers in Tacoma and Gig Harbor.

At a Burnham Drive Northwest traffic circle, by Target in Gig Harbor, volunteers were spit on by a passing motorist.

"We were also told we were an abomination in Christ's eyes," Referendum 71 supporter Kelly McDonald, of the Pierce County YWCA, wrote in a recent e-mail.  "Ironically, many of the individuals recruited for the various sign waving events - including myself - are not gay."

On the corner of South 38th and Steele in Tacoma, where demonstrators from both sides of the debate faced off on multiple occasions in October, Referendum 71 opponents were even more aggressive.

Reject-71 volunteers attempted to physically intimidate approve-71 campaigners on numerous occasions, according to McDonald and others.  One very tall man adopted the strategy of hovering menacingly over volunteers until the sheer creepiness of it prompted them to protest.  When one approve-71 sign waver spoke up, the man asked if they needed to "go around the corner."  When the invitation was declined, he relocated to an area approximately a half inch from McDonald's 10-year-old daughter.

"At that point, I told him he needed to move away from my daughter and give her space (especially since she was on the curb at one of the busiest intersections in Tacoma). He began to argue, and I cut him off saying, ‘Move away from my daughter.' He did."

One car passenger threw a beverage, hitting an approve-71 volunteer.  Other passers-by shouted "Death to all you faggots!" and "We should get the KKK here!"

This wasn't Birmingham in '63 or Selma in '65.  This was Tacoma in 2009, over by the Red Robin.

When one Referendum 71 supporter tried to cross the street, a car struck her, apparently on purpose. 

"She was crossing with the light," says Karin White-Tautfest, also of the YWCA.  "A car tried to turn right, so she stopped midway through the intersection to let them go. The car stopped, so she continued crossing. The car then accelerated right into her and grazed her leg."

Even that wasn't enough.  On Oct. 31, as the day's demonstration drew to a close, a reject-71 group surrounded four remaining approve-71 volunteers, chanting, "Cock-suck-ers!  Cock-suck-ers!"

But the attempts at intimidation were in vain.  Referendum 71 passed.  Cockuckers can now enjoy some of the same legal privileges as dickheads, assholes, douchbags and pricks.           

"It does just go to show what some of the challenges for the gay community are," says Jinkins.  "I suppose that it's always a little easier when you see that the arc of history is on our side."

Along with the majority, to which 82,189 Pierce County residents proudly belong.