Gay marriage wins final legislative passage in Washington state

A Democratic-backed bill to legalize gay marriage in Washington state won final legislative approval on Wednesday in a largely party-line vote that moved the state one step closer to becoming the seventh to recognize same-sex nuptials.Governor Christine Gregoire, a Democrat in her last term of office, was expected to sign the gay marriage bill into law early next week, but opponents have vowed to seek its repeal at the polls in November.

The measure cleared the state House of Representatives by a vote of 55-43, a week after it was passed by the state Senate and a day after a federal appeals court declared California‘s voter-approved gay marriage ban unconstitutional.

Democrats, accounting for the lion’s share of support for the bill, control both legislative bodies in Olympia but enjoy a bigger majority in the 98-seat House. Two Republicans joined 53 Democrats in voting for the bill, while two Democrats sided with 41 Republicans in opposition.

Senate passage last Wednesday came on a 28-21 vote.

Six other states already recognize same-sex marriage — New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Iowa — as does the District of Columbia.

Supporters are pushing similar statutes in Maryland and New Jersey, and a referendum to legalize gay marriage in Maine has qualified for the November ballot there.

Gay rights advocates won another victory on Tuesday when a federal appeals court declared a voter-passed ban on same-sex marriages in California to be unconstitutional.

HEATED DEBATE

Floor action began with lawmakers quickly rejecting a series of amendments, most of them relatively technical in nature, that would have slowed the bill’s momentum by forcing it back to the Senate for further consideration.

Debate grew emotional at times, with the bill’s chief House sponsor, Representative Jamie Pedersen, a Democrat who has four young children with his gay companion of 10 years, arguing that the state’s domestic-partnership law falls short.

“I would like our four children to understand … that their daddy and their papa have made that lifelong commitment to each other,” he said. “Thousands of same-sex couples in our state deserve the respect and protection from our government that only marriage can convey.”

Representative Jay Rodne, a Republican who said he was guided by his Roman Catholic faith to oppose gay marriage, decried the bill as tantamount to “progressive reengineering in its most extreme and damaging form.”

“This bill is about validation. This bill is about acceptance … Marriage is not about self-actualization, validation or acceptance,” he said. “Marriage is about life.”

But his Republican colleague, Glenn Anderson, spoke in favor of the bill, referring to his gay brother and drawing a parallel between Jim Crow racial segregation laws in Alabama, where he grew up, and contemporary laws barring same-sex marriage.

With House passage on Wednesday, the bill is to be formally delivered to Gregoire’s desk by the end of the week, and she will then have five days to sign it, not including Sunday. That timetable has led to speculation of enactment coming next Tuesday, Valentine’s Day.

Still, the measure would not take effect before June 7, three months after the conclusion of the legislative session.

In the meantime, opponents of same-sex matrimony said they would seek to overturn the legislation via one of two ballot measures — a referendum for repeal or an initiative defining marriage as the exclusive domain of heterosexual couples.

The former would need 241,153 signatures of registered voters by July 6 to secure a place on the November ballot. The latter would need just half the number of signatures by June 6.

If a repeal referendum qualifies for the November ballot, the gay marriage law would be suspended until the election and certification of returns, meaning December 6, before it is either repealed or goes into effect.

The House on Wednesday rejected an amendment offered by opponents that would essentially have mandated a ballot question on the issue without the need for a petition.

Should gay marriage opponents pursue an initiative, by contrast, gay marriages could proceed on June 7, regardless of ballot-qualification efforts. But it was unclear whether gay weddings performed in the interim would be nullified if an initiative restricting marriage to male-female unions only were to pass in November.

There is precedent in California for handling such a situation. California‘s Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2008, only for voters to approve a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex matrimony six months later.

The state’s high court later upheld the gay marriage ban, known as Proposition 8, but ruled that 18,000 same-sex weddings officiated between May and November 2008 were still legal.

A federal judge later ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional, a decision upheld on Tuesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Legal experts said that ruling, while narrowly tailored to California, could ease the way for a successful court challenge in Washington state should voters there overturn a gay marriage statute.

By Nicole Neroulias

OLYMPIA, Wash (Reuters) -(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

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