Washington voters to have say in same-sex ‘marriage’

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Voters in Washington state this November apparently will get to decide whether to keep or overturn the state’s same-sex “everything-but-marriage” law, which grants homosexual couples all the legal benefits of marriage and which conservatives warn will lead to the legalization of full-fledged gay “marriage” in the state.

The Washington secretary of state announced Aug. 31 that organizers of Referendum 71 had collected enough valid signatures to place it on the November ballot, capping a pro-family effort that surprised liberals and even some conservatives in its success. Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire signed the bill into law in May, but it won’t go into effect until voters have a say. Meanwhile supporters of the new law have filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the signatures as illegal and keep the referendum off the ballot.

Washington is one of five states to grant same-sex couples all the legal benefits of marriage, minus the name. It would be the first, though, to enact such a law and then reverse course.

Protect Marriage Washington, the umbrella organization that organized the petition drive, collected approximately 137,000 signatures in about 60 days. The secretary of state’s office said Sept. 2 that 122,007 had been accepted — roughly 1,400 more than needed. (TAB)