Monday, February 13, 2012

Another one joins the fold

Even though this will likely only be temporary, like it happened in Maine, today Washington became the 7th state in the nation to approve same-sex marriage legislatively:

WaStateGov. Chris Gregoire will, late Monday morning, sign into law legislation that will make Washington the seventh state to legalize civil marriage between same-sex couples.

[…] The marriage equality bill cleared the State House of Representatives Wednesday by a 55-43 vote.  The State Senate passed it a week earlier on a 28-21 vote.  Four Republican state senators and two GOP house members joined most Democrats in voting for the legislation.

[…] Opponents have until June 6 to collect 120,577 valid voter signatures to force a referendum vote on marriage equality in this November’s election.

The legislation is scheduled to go into effect on June 7, but would be held in abeyance if a referendum is to be held.

This is great news, except for the part about the signatures collection effort, of course.  Unfortunately, it looks like our opponents will be successful in forcing a November vote, which isn’t good news because until now no similar initiative ever failed.

Here’s what Seattle’s Archbishop, a foe, had to say:

“The truth is that gradually, religious faith and religious points of view are being pushed out of discussion in the public square, as if the sacred truths by which we live are irreverent and outdated,”

And to that, I say, Yes, your views are outdated and they should be pushed out of the public square whenever you try to push your religious views on other people who don’t share them.  Keep your sermons to your church pulpit, thank you very much!!

From SeattlePI.  More at Towleroad.

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