Washington State Approves Gay Partnerships

Voters OK “Everything But Marriage” Law, First Time Equality Measure Gets Nod at Ballot Box

(AP)  Washington voters have approved the state's new “everything but marriage” law, expanding rights for domestic partners and marking the first time any state's voters have approved a gay equality measure at the ballot box.

With about 72 percent of the expected vote counted Thursday in unofficial returns, Referendum 71 was leading 52 percent to 48 percent, with a margin of about 60,000 votes.

Sen. Ed Murray, a Seattle Democrat who spearheaded the law, called it “a great step forward for equality in Washington state.”

“I'm relieved,” he said. “I was very concerned that if the voters had said no, it would have been a major setback for gay and lesbian families in Washington state.”

The measure asked voters to approve or reject the latest expansion of the state's domestic partnership law, granting registered domestic partners additional state rights previously given only to married couples.

Full-fledged gay marriage is still not allowed under Washington law.

Gary Randall of Protect Marriage Washington, which opposed the law and pushed to get the referendum on the ballot, said they weren't ready to concede.

“We're just going to wait and watch it play out,” he said.

Randall said that while they're waiting until all the votes are counted, “going in, we knew that we had a pretty tough task ahead of us.”

“We knew there was a chance we would not prevail,” he said.

Two national gay rights groups - the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Family Equality Council - say that voter approval of such a measure was a first. Gay equality laws in other states, ranging from civil rights to gay marriage, have either been implemented by the courts or legislative process. Voters have rejected gay marriage 31 states, most recently in Maine, where voters repealed a gay marriage law on Tuesday.

“Our state made history today,” said Anne Levinson, chairwoman of Washington Families Standing Together, which fought to keep the law on the books. “This is a day for which we can all look back with pride.”

The expanded law in Washington state adds benefits, such as the right to use sick leave to care for a domestic partner, and rights related to adoption, child custody and child support.

During the campaign, opponents argued the law is a stepping-stone to gay marriage. Gay rights activists countered that while the marriage debate was for another day, same-sex couples need additional legal protections and rights in the meantime.

The law was to take effect July 26, but was delayed because of the referendum campaign. It will now take effect Dec. 3, according to the secretary of state's office.

The underlying domestic partnership law, which the Legislature passed in 2007, provided hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations, and inheritance rights when there is no will.

Last year, lawmakers expanded the law to give domestic partners standing under laws covering probate and trusts, community property and guardianship.

More than 12,000 people in Washington state are registered as domestic partners, and most are gay. Under state law, senior heterosexual couples can register as domestic partners as well, if at least one partner is 62 years old or older. That provision was included by lawmakers to help seniors who don't remarry out of fear they could lose certain pension or social security benefits.

Washington state, along with California, Oregon, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia, have laws that either recognize civil unions or domestic partnerships that afford same-sex couples similar rights to marriage.

Same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and Vermont, and will start in New Hampshire in January. Voters in Maine on Tuesday repealed a gay marriage law that was passed by the Legislature there earlier this year.

Gov. Chris Gregoire said that the vote on R-71 made her “very proud.”

“I think Washington state stood out in this country on Tuesday by saying one of the inherent values in our state is equality,” she said Thursday.

Results weren't known until Thursday because almost all voters in Washington cast their ballots by mail, and even those ballots postmarked on Election Day are valid. That means close elections often drag on for a few days or longer.

[barbaram99]

the US of A is not a CHristian nation and never was. The founging Fathers did not want a state religion and so that is so. We have sep of church and state. Yet I do have a bible that is hard to read. I am legally blind. I have limited reading level.I was not raised in the church. The chruch has a bloody history. The witch hunts and other awful acts.
The US Contution says marriage is between a man and woman. I don't care what others do in their home.

[slownewsday-05]

"The US Contution says marriage is between a man and woman."

No, it doesn't. It doesn't mention marriage.

[bytheway59]

even when the word 'marriage' is not used, the religious loonies still incorporate their perverted ideology in the lives of others.

[cidaia]

You're the one who has the perverted ideology. You hate an entire group of people (the majority of the people in the USA) because they want to reproduce sexually, the way humans have always done, and honor both parents. You want to use your children to experiment with your hypothesis that nothing bad will happen if you are allowed to prioritize your own sexual pleasure over the principles that everyone else recognizes as being fundamental to a strong, healthy family.

Your desire to have families that are legally able to exclude one sex or the other - your desire to discriminate by sex - outweighs a parent's normal feelings of love and concern for their child's well-being. That sounds pretty monstrous to me.

[hakori]

cidia, WHAT?! You're rambling and have no clue what you're talking about. You make gay people sound like they're some other species, much less tax paying American citizens. There is no experimentaion going on with anyones' children...gay people come from...STRAIGHT PARENTS! What does "prioritize your own sexual pleasure over the principles that everyone else recognizes as being fundamental to a strong, healthy family" mean? What does the legal recognition and the rights that go along with marriage have to do with anything you have said? Gay parents are evey bit as capable of raising healthy "normal" children as straight parents. That's a FACT! If you don't believe me, LOOK IT UP! The only thing monstorous here is your fear based ignorance. You don't like gay people-that's obvious. I'm sure there are lots of people you don't like. I find it strange that you say gays hate the majority of people in the USA because they want to reproduce sexually....how else do humans reproduce; they don't bud! So gays hate other Americans because they ask for the same rights heterosexual Americans take for granted? Are you really this dense or are you just a bigot?

[Lawyers-Guns-n-Money-01]

Ooops!

[hungry1968-17]

by cidaia November 6, 2009 8:16 AM EST
no, you don't have to marry to have a baby, but women who line up a marriage contract before having a baby, tend to be well-supported, prosperous, and have healthy babies.

Women who fail to line up a marriage contract, tend to get abandoned, live in abject poverty, and their child has no contact with the entire paternal half of his family.

Often, women are so desperate when they realize they're pregnant and all alone, they're forced to give their babies away for gay people to play dolly with. That's where gay people get babies from.







Where do you get this "marriage contract" nonsense from?!?

What country do you live in?

[cidaia]

I am referring to the marriage license as a contract, because it functions as a contract.

Observe for yourself what happens when people attempt to procreate without marriage: couples' conflict of interest quickly dominates the family. Girls try to use their babies and their "shaming power" manipulatively. Men try to use their financial earning power manipulatively. Both seek more control over defining the question of who owes what to whom. The baby is the one who loses. The family's energy is going into defining questions of status, hierarchy, expectation and responsibility, and there's less energy available for the child's needs.

Far more often than not, it ends in one or both parents abandoning the child.

Marriage stabilizes this situation. As both a social and a legal institution, it regulates what a man should provide vs. what is unreasonable, and what a woman owes in return for this caretaking. Sometimes the institution has to evolve (perhaps co-evolve is a better word) as historically speaking, every time men have had more rights, women in turn have wanted that increase in human rights to include them.

[cidaia]

Actually I'll grant that contract isn't the right word, but oh well. Men and women negotiate terms before entering into marriage.

The point is that marriage has a practical side, the gay rights argument relies on pretending the practical functions of marriage aren't real or don't matter, because their arguments fall apart if you look at what marriage actually DOES for people.

[mensarino]

Justice!

[bytheway59]

closer, but not there yet.

[Virgil-1]

Washington,you haven't learned from the Sodom and Gomorrah facts.You
will be judged for your immoral decision.

[slownewsday-05]

Luckily, your beliefs only apply to those who share them.

Personally, I prefer to think for myself.

[Virgil-1]

The downfall of all societies.Maybe this is what the state of Washington wants.You have played right into the devil's hands.

[hungry1968-17]

Oh goodie.

ANOTHER "myth-illogical" being.

[AttentionDeficit]

"they're forced to give their babies away for gay people to play dolly with."

to play dolly with? as opposed to straight people who have kids to play dolly with?

[cidaia]

When the civil rights movement expands to children, no child will be expected to go motherless in the name of "equal rights". Equal rights for you aren't equal for the child. Being motherless is a wound that never really heals.

And when (not if, when) the civil rights movement expands to encompass children, nobody will have the right to create a child knowing perfectly well that one of the child's biological parents is expected to not want the child and will reject the child. That's no better than trafficking.

To deliberately create a child for the purposes of satisfying a wealthy buyer's desire for a baby - in other words, creating a baby for the purpose of "selling" it (although admittedly that word is too crude for the actual delicacy of the transaction) - this is not in a child's best interest.

Your right to love whom you want does not give you the right to deprive your child of a healthy, complete family. You should grow up and be ready to share your child with the child's other rightful parent, because that is what is best for your child.

[mensarino]

One step at a time,it is inevitable.

[DaVicar8]

What's inevitable?
The end of a civilized, moral society?

I agree.

[slownewsday-05]

Vic, I don't think you and I would agree on what's "moral", especially since you base yours on blind dogma.

Whose morals to use is the problem. And your morals are no better than mine, they are just different.

[hungry1968-17]

by phantomwalker November 6, 2009 8:45 AM EST
Eventually the United States morals will degrade to the point where same sex marriage will be accepted. I know this because of the point we have already reached by removing God from our schools.







Who is prohibiting you from sending your kids to parochial schools?