Washington State voting in favor of expanding Domestic Partners benefits to Gay couples

[Divine Discontent]

One good piece of news out of tonight, and the tough loss 53-47 in Maine, is that Washington voters are pushing Gay rights further along! It is not official yet, but mathematically, I hear it's looking very good with the rest of the votes still to be counted over the next few days.

http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/Results.aspx?RaceTypeCode=M&JurisdictionTypeID=-2&ElectionID=32&ViewMode=Results


County Results & Map
Last updated on 11/3/2009 10:37 PM
Referendum Measure 71 concerning rights and responsibilities of state-registered domestic partners
Measure Vote Vote %
Approved
507,547 51.12 %
Rejected
485,253 48.88 %
Total Votes 992,800 100.00%

[Libertas1776]

1. Its not perfect

but it is a helluva a start in the right direction. Way to go Washington. :)

[Divine Discontent]

3. yep, at least we're heading the right way. Seeing WA come thru sure took the burn off the

potentially huge win we narrowly missed on out of Maine.

In time.

They cannot beat us - we have love and the truth on our side.

[Divine Discontent]

2. where the measure on the ballot came from ---

In Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire signed a bill in May granting same sex domestic partners all the rights of married couples. That same month conservative interests announced they would attempt to overturn the new law and enough signatures were collected enough to place R-71 on the November ballot. Opponents of the bill are trying to get the names published of those who signed the petition.

and honestly, it shouldn't have been this close in liberal Washington - but unfortunately, there are still those who need to see the light about love being equal whoever it belongs to! Even up to the president himself. I support my president deeply, but he's wrong on his views about marriage equality for Gay people, or at least his public presentation of his views. I know he supports laws in place being respected once they give rights, but it's not the same. Hopefully when he DOES win re-election he will push hard for marriage equality, after he corrects the ship that b*sh has nearly/potentially sunk, first!

And about getting the names of those who signed the petition and their cries of NOOOOO - I say,
GO GET 'EM! Call 'em out! They shouldn't be afraid to let us see their names.

[pnwmom]

4. Washington isn't a liberal state, it's very mixed. King County and Seattle are liberal,

but much of the rest of the state is Republican.

I'm proud of Washington's voters for rejecting the bigotry of the people who wanted to overturn the law.

[Divine Discontent]

6. I love when I see a voter on the west side of the mountains say they're making sure their vote nulls

out the vote of some nut on the eastern side. Ha. I'm glad they've appeared to support Gay rights in the state. It's probably one of the better places to live in the country (city areas of WA.), along with SF when it comes to people accepting everyone's differences.

Someday there will be real equality in marriage. We got a hate crimes bill this year - and that is making the extremists on the repub side go loopy. I was hoping Maine would help us make the heads fully turn red! At least Washington is helping.

I also think in many states we could move forward with full protections for all couples getting the same rights. I want it to be that marriage is by any two people, but we certainly should take the rights if the courts and if need be, the people, want to vote them in (I hate that it was put on a petition to try and take away in Washington, but we won it hopefully appears, so there work there was for naught!)

[Liberal Gramma]

14. In France, all marriages are civil ceremonies

The church part is optional. I'd like to see that here, if we could assure that any couple could have the civil ceremony with all its attendant rites. We may never be able to convince some churches to bless a same-sex union but if we could separate marriage and church then all marriages would be equal.

[regnaD kciN]

7. And even Pierce County (Tacoma) went against equal rights...

:shrug:

[quiller4]

9. Only a small fraction of Pierce County votes are counted. It will be

very close but it won't remain the way it looks now.

[pnwmom]

11. Pierce County is always more conservative than King County.

I don't know what it is about Tacoma.

[regnaD kciN]

5. It's still not over yet...

With only a 51-49 margin, and no one knowing how many votes are still out there in the postal service (in Washington, votes only have to be postmarked, not received, by Election Day), it's still way too soon and too close to call. I've seen measures like this leading on Election Night, and going down to defeat by the time all the votes are counted in a week or so. Hold your breath!

[Divine Discontent]

8. holding breath! and praying for the rights to be given to all! I saw on the seattlepi website that

there's a bunch more votes still to be counted because of the mail ins, so let's hope it stays well ahead.

[pnwmom]

12. My husband and I were mail-ins. Hopefully most the mail-ins voted as we did! n/t

[quiller4]

10. The margin now matches the polls. I'm not celebrating yet but

the "experts" expect the margin to hold when they look at where most of the outstanding votes are.

[juno jones]

13. Yes!

I made a point of voting so I could vote for this. I'm happy it's ahead. I was waiting to hear about it.