OLYMPIA — Washington must end discrimination against same-sex couples, an emotional Gov. Chris Gregoire said this morning. She urged the Legislature to pass a bill that allows gay and lesbian couples to marry in the state without requiring churches to perform the service if they object.
  

Gregoire received extended applause from some 70 people crowded into the governor's conference room as she called same-sex marriage rights a defining civil rights issue of the current generation. Younger citizens are ahead of her generation, she said, and the public is ahead of the Legislature on it, she insisted.

Legislators who attended the press conference said they believed they have the votes to pass a bill Gregoire will endorse in the House, but are “a few votes” short of a majority in the Senate.

But it is time for legislators to step up and take a tough vote on same-sex marriage, Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, said. He predicted he would get Republican votes for that measure, something he doubted he would get for a tax increase.

“Suddenly, gay marriage becomes easier than passing taxes,” Murray said.

Sen. Lisa Brown discusses an amendment with Sen. Mark Schoesler during debate on the domestic partnership surrogacy bill.

OLYMPIA – A proposal to make clear who has legal custody for a children in a domestic partnership cleared a sharply divided Senate Tuesday, but a provision to allow parents to pay a surrogate mother did not.
Supporters said state law needs to recognize a greater variety of family structures exist now than a generation ago.
“Ozzie and Harriet don’t live here any more,” Sen. Sharon Nelson, D-Maury Island, said. “That’s a make-believe world.”
Opponents said domestic partners could go to court and use existing laws to adopt children if they aren’t the biological parent. “If there is a relationship involved, let those persons solve it in a legal way,” Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, said.
  

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OLYMPIA — The Senate agreed Washington should recognize domestic partnerships from other states, giving
28-19 approval to a bill that now goes to Gov. Chris Gregoire.

On a largely party line vote, the Senate approved HB 1649, which allows domestic partnerships and other contracctual unions of same-sex couples from other states to be recognized in Washington. Same-sex marriages, which aren't recognized in Washington, would be treated the same as domestic partnerships under the bill.

Opponents argued that it was an expansion of state law into the recognition of same-sex marriage, but supporters said it was really about equality for couples who had a partnership in another state and move to Washington.

Among Spokane-area legislators, voting yes was Lisa Brown, D; voting no were Mike Baumgartner, Jeff Baxter, Bob Morton and Mark Schoesler, all R.

OLYMPIA – Because Washington state outlaws paying a surrogate mother to have a baby, some couples with fertility problems go to Oregon or California where they can hire women to carry a child.

Because state law also presumes that the birth mother has parental rights, some gay and lesbian couples have to go through legal adoption, even if one of them is a biological parent.

A bill in the Legislature would change both of those laws, and allow the state to recognize that not all families look like “Leave it to Beaver,” said the proposal’s sponsor, Rep. Jamie Pederson, D-Seattle. Laws against paying a surrogate mother have never been enforced, he added.

But HB 1267 would also turn surrogate mothers, and the babies they have, into commodities, opponents told the Senate Government Operations Committee Tuesday. The state doesn’t allow people to sell kidneys or other organs, and shouldn’t allow surrogate mothers to receive money for having a child…

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People trying to overturn a new law giving expanded rights to same-sex domestic partners have filed an 11th-hour appeal of the proposed ballot language.

The move sets their own signature-gathering effort back at least a week, but seems aimed at boosting their odds by trying to make voters see domestic partnerships as virtually identical to marriage.

Shortly before the 5 p.m. deadline today, Arlington’s Larry Stickney filed an appeal with the Thurston County Superior Court. He wants a judge to re-word the description and ballot summary of Referendum 71.

Here’s the summary language originally proposed by the Attorney General’s office (the bold-facing is mine, to highlight the differences):

Same-sex couples, or any couple that includes one person age sixty-two or older, may register as a domestic partnership with the state.  Registered domestic partnerships are not marriages, and marriage is prohibited except between one man and one woman.  This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of registered domestic partners and their families to include all rights, responsibilities, and obligations granted by or imposed by state law on married couples and their families.

Here’s what Stickney proposes instead:

This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities and obligations of registered domestic partners to be equal to the rights, responsibilities and obligations granted by or imposed by state law on married couples, except that domestic partnerships will not be called marriages.

Similarly, here’s the original description wording proposed by the AG:

“Concise Description: This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage.”

And here’s how Stickney would like it to read:

“Concise Statement: This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities and obligations of state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partnerships, to be equal to the rights, responsibilities and obligations of married couples, except that domestic partnerships will not be called marriages.”

The point, clearly, is to suggest that domestic partnerships are now essentially the same thing as marriage. That’s what critics of the new law have been saying — and proponents have been denying — for months. In fact, state Sen. Ed Murray, one of several openly gay lawmakers and the sponsor of the bill, has repeatedly called the legislation the “everything but marriage” bill.

According to Brian Zylstra, spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office, the case has been assigned to Judge Thomas McPhee, but no date’s yet been set. (Case number: 09-2-01278-1)

The court typically handles such cases as part of its Friday motion calendar, meaning that the earliest date would be May 29. The Secretary of State’s office says that June 5 or June 12 is probably more likely. 

If it’s the latter date, Stickney and affiliated church groups and social conservatives would have just six weeks to print and circulate petitions. To get R-71 on the November ballot for a statewide vote, they need at least 120,577 voter signatures by July 25th.