Do unto other families as you would have done unto yours: Approve Referendum 71.

Every day before the sun comes up, I sign student planners, check for coats, pack diapers and lunches and herd five kids into our van to start the daycare/school rounds. I report to work as a middle school teacher in Tacoma and greet 850 students. I work hard to ensure each is welcomed, valued and feels invested in.

I help them dream, plan, work hard and become. The final bell signals more meetings and mom’s taxi running to piano lessons, sports, religious school… Dinner together, homework, bedtime. We smile at each other with exhausted accomplishment. The phone rings. “DSHS, we have a sibling group, can you open your home?” Within an hour, we are consoling tear-soaked kids, tucking them into bed as the newest members of our hard-working family.

Hard-working families, equal work for equal pay, and protections for our surviving spouses and children — that is why Washington voters must approve Referendum 71. It simply ensures that all Washington families — my Washington family — is guaranteed equal protection under the law by providing death benefits for the domestic partners of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty, pension benefits for partners of teachers and other public employees, victims’ rights, and the right to adopt a partner’s child without paying for a home study. Radical stuff? Far from it.

Approve Referendum 71 so that my state retirement is treated the same as my fellow teachers. As a public school teacher, the state matches my contribution to the Washington State Retirement System. Voting no on Referendum 71 is a coffin tax on my family: 50 percent (every dollar the state matched) of my hard-earned retirement would be denied to my grieving family, which will soon include an 11-year-old adopted out of foster care.

Do unto other families as you would have done unto your own: Vote to approve Referendum 71.

Approve 71 so that the medical insurance I as a teacher extend to my spouse and children is not unfairly taxed. My fellow teachers pay for their family’s medical insurance out of pre-tax dollars. I am forced to pay for mine out of post-tax dollars.

Approve Referendum 71 so that all Washington teachers work an equal day for equal pay and benefits.

Take a stand for justice, for equality under the law for all families. Ensure the protections families need and deserve are not repealed. Stop discriminatory efforts. Vote to approve Referendum 71.

Rachel Smith-Mosel, Federal Way