The Legislature moved closer to making Washington the seventh state to legally recognize same-sex marriages with a bipartisan Senate vote Wednesday night.
“A lot of people are just stunned, particularly people in my age group and older,” said Ed Murray, gay marriage’s champion in the Senate, who spoke before the vote in a news conference attended by his partner, Michael Shiosaki. “I don’t think we actually believed this day would come in our lifetimes. I certainly didn’t believe that when these battles started in the ’90s.”
The final vote was 28-21; it came a week after Murray announced he finally had enough “yes” votes. Easier approval is expected in the House – which is expected to vote next week – and by Gov. Chris Gregoire, who introduced the measure.
Republican Sen. Dan Swecker of Rochester spoke against the measure, saying it will create a hostile environment and “will lead to the silencing of people who believe in traditional marriage.”
The vote moves the state closer to a challenge by conservative and religious activists who plan a ballot measure to overturn it – echoing the fight in 2009 over expanding the rights of Washington’s registered domestic partners.
It’s part of a coast-to-coast battle. Maine voters are expected to decide whether to legalize gay marriage, something legislatures in New Jersey and elsewhere are also considering, according to advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. Voters in Minnesota and North Carolina this year will decide whether to move in the opposite direction with constitutional bans on gay marriage.
In this state, conservative Democrats Tim Sheldon, Jim Hargrove and Paull Shin opposed the measure. That meant Democrats needed at least one Republican vote – and they got four, from King County Republican Sens. Steve Litzow, Cheryl Pflug, Andy Hill, and Joe Fain.
Before passing the measure, the Senate rejected sending it to a public vote but agreed to add protections for religious groups that Fain proposed.
“I feel by giving my support in the end to the bill, I’ve been able to accomplish these changes,” Fain said in an interview.
Some parts of the proposed legislation may be redundant, as the First Amendment already protects religious freedom.
But the marriage measure spells out anyway that churches and other religious groups have the right to refuse to perform a wedding. Fain’s changes add the same guarantee for religious groups performing activities such as marriage counseling.
Fain, a 31-year-old freshman legislator from Auburn, might be the Republican senator with the most to lose from his vote.
His district narrowly opposed the 2009 “everything but marriage” law that expanded rights under the state’s domestic-partnership law. Litzow, Pflug and Hill all come from districts that favored Referendum 71 – though redistricting is shifting the districts’ boundaries. Some Democrats, including Kastama, also come from districts that opposed R-71.
The National Organization for Marriage advocacy group has pledged to see that Republican supporters of gay marriage face challenges in primary elections.
Opponents of same-sex marriage are also angling to again fight the change at the ballot box. Polls show near-majority support for it in the Evergreen State.
“I think that the public opinion is shifting dramatically on these issues,” said Michael Cole-Schwartz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C. In recent years, he said, “That was part of the strategy of those who opposed marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Seeing the writing on the wall, they rushed to the ballot to enshrine these kinds of bans in their constitutions so as to forestall progress.”
Gary Randall, president of the evangelical Faith and Freedom Network, said advocates for same-sex marriage are overestimating the level of public support. He called same-sex marriage “unnatural and unusual” in human history.
He said his group has been meeting with faith communities and that Catholic, Mormon and evangelical Christian groups are on board with a ballot challenge.
Brad Shannon: 360-753-1688
bshannon@theolympian.com
www.theolympian.com/politicsblog
Jordan Schrader: 360-786-1826
jordan.schrader@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
twitter.com/jordan_schrader
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