Washington is potentially going to become the seventh state to legalize gay marriage, amidst a shaky Senate approval of bill 6239 that is set to be considered on Wednesday, February 1st.
Washington’s House Judiciary Committee passed bill 2516 Monday 14-7, where it now will be put to the floor for Senate approval.
Camano Island Senator Mary Margaret Haugen just validated her support as the 25th vote, giving the bill the necessary leverage of approval.
The bills have support from Gov. Christine Gregoire, which stands in stark contrast to Gov. Chris Christie stating that he would veto any gay marriage bill and instead open up referendum to decide on gay marriage in his state of New Jersey.
Christie recently landed in hot water over comments about civil rights and gay marriage where he stated that the South didn’t have the option for referendum due to the political climate. He has since attempted to clarify his statements, but has received substantial backlash for his careless remarks.
Christie has stated that his nomination of Bruce Harris to the state’s supreme court, which was applauded by gay rights groups, is void of Harris’ ability to consider the issue of same-sex marriage.
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley recently introduced a measure to allow same-sex unions with financial and legal protections that would also benefit children of those couples, which he was stated as saying: “We all want the same thing for our children — the opportunity to live in loving, caring, committed stable homes protected equally under the law. It’s not right and it is not just that the children of gay couples should have lesser protection than the children of (straight couples).” (LINK)
In Maine, a state appeals court denied the National Organization of Marriage’s request to hide the list of donor’s that helped to defeat same-sex marriage rights, stating campaign disclosure laws as the reason of denial.
Several notable and powerful Northwest businesses: Nike, Vulcan, Microsoft and Starbucks to name a few have expressed support for the measure. Starbucks has recently been scorned by the National Organization of Marriage for its financial support of gay marriage. Examiner Gina Caprio recently wrote about Starbucks assault from the notoriously [bigoted] controversial group in relation to the Washington legislation.
Opponents of the measure promise to secure votes to force a referendum, needing 120,557 signatures by June 6th. Otherwise, couples will be allowed to wed after that date, and all domestic partnerships currently on file will either default to marriages or be given an opportunity to dissolve their status that has been enacted since 2007.
Couples with at least one person aged 62 or older will retain domestic partnership status to protect benefits through government programs, such as Social Security.
Washington would join New York, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, the District of Columbia and Vermont in allowing same-sex couples to wed.
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