Bill would expand rights of same-sex couples

OLYMPIA – Another battle over the rights of same-sex couples is headed to the state Legislature this year as activists try to expand rights available under Washington’s 1 1/2-year-old domestic-partnership registry.

That registry has 4,892 couples with either two members of the same sex or one member age 62 or older. Nearly 200 rights are included, including the right to hospital visits, inheriting through community property laws, and the power to make decisions about a loved one’s remains.

Democratic Sen. Ed Murray, of Seattle, says he thinks it’s still too early to push for full marriage rights and instead plans to focus on adding rights to the partnership registry, which lawmakers created in 2007 as a step toward a long-range goal of “marriage equality.”

Murray and the Legislature’s five other openly gay members are working with the gay community on a bill. He said the draft bill is extremely long because it needs to make multiple references to very specific language in the law.

Opponents are getting ready to fight.

“If Ed Murray is able to coerce or somehow convince enough people to pass his bill, we first will lobby hard against it,” said Gary Randall, a leader of Faith and Freedom. “But we also will mount a massive statewide effort to defeat it at the polls if it goes that far. … We’re already organizing perchance that would happen. We are organizing a district-by-district effort to defeat it.”