In September of 2004, a Superior Court in Washington state ruled
the state's 1998 "Defense of Marriage" act unconstitutional, a ruling which would have allowed the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In 2006, the state Supreme Court issued in an opinion in
Andersen v. King County overturning the lower court's ruling, noting "that
our decision [pdf] is not based on an independent
determination of what we believe the law should be." The legislature, in response,
created the state-registered domestic partnership in 2007, expanding many (but not all) marriage-related rights to same-sex couples. Last month,
a new law expanded the partnership to cover the remaining rights, creating an "all-but-marriage" partnership.
This year, the Washington Values Alliance has
filed Referendum 71, which would put this expansion to a ballot vote. The referendum will need 120,000 signatures to make it to the ballot.
WhoSigned.org intends to make these signatures searchable.
Predictably, this is
creating some controversy.
[more inside]
posted by 0xFCAF
on Jun 2, 2009 -
114 comments
