A bill granting domestic-partnership rights to gays and lesbians passed the state legislature early Tuesday evening, April 10. The bill passed the house 63–35 after four monkey-wrench amendments were offered up in turn by Republicans Glenn Anderson (R-5, Fall City) and Jay Rodne (R-5, North Bend) and Democrat Mark Miloscia (D-30, Federal Way). These amendments would have done things like expand the definition of domestic partnerships to include close relatives, demand a referendum on the issue, or declare that if one part of the legislation was found unconstitutional, the whole thing would be thrown out.

The legislation also grants domestic-partnership rights to seniors, so that widows and widowers in new relationships don't lose pensions and benefits by remarrying. The bill, sponsored by gay Senator Ed Murray (D-43, Seattle), passed the state senate 28–19 on March 1 [see "Half Measure," Dominic Holden, March 7]. A similar measure in the house had 56 co-sponsors earlier this year, so the current measure seemed likely to pass.

Taking a bite-size approach to equal rights, the bill grants about 10 rights to domestic partners—such as allowing domestic partners to have hospital visitation rights, allowing partners to give informed consent in medical decisions, allowing partners to make funeral arrangements, and allowing partners to inherit property in the absence of a will.

The bill leaves a host (423 and counting according to the latest study) of other rights off the table, like access to a partner's health insurance or pension benefits and the right of "spousal privilege," which would shield one half of a domestic partnership from being compelled to testify against the other.

Earlier this session, Murray explained the politics of the bite-size strategy: "By emphasizing issues in the domestic-partnership bill—being able to visit your partner in the hospital and bury your partner—we emphasize two of the hundreds of rights of marriage that gays and lesbians don't have. Every year we'll introduce more of these and people are going to get the picture that we just need to do the whole thing. The idea here is a multiple-bill strategy to get people educated. If we just focused on marriage, we'd have this huge culture war. By breaking out: 'This is what we're asking for...' hundreds of things down the line—to be able to visit our partners... to have them on our health care—we educate people to the reality. We show people that we need to be able to protect the person we're with or have access to their property."

Gay Representative Jamie Pedersen (D-43, Seattle), who pushed the issue in the house, explained that the specific rights they led with this year were pressing because they had an "economic justice" component. Pedersen explained earlier this session that this specific list of rights are all things a gay or lesbian could already accomplish if he or she paid lawyers enough. "You've got people who can't afford to have lawyers make all these fancy expensive arrangements" that straight people can get for the low cost of a marriage license.

On Tuesday, Senator Murray would not outline what rights were next in line. However, he was happy to talk about the win: "I was here in 1998 when they passed the Defense of Marriage Act. For me to be here today to watch us turn back that horrendous law is a moment of deep satisfaction. Our community had been down on this issue in the legislature in the '90s and beaten down by the [state] supreme court last year. Yet we're coming back in the legislature and we're starting to win on this issue."

Murray, however, did warn that the gay community isn't organizationally ready to pass a full marriage bill. "We really don't have the depth and breadth to pass a full marriage bill. It's got to be more than just liberals supporting this if we're going to elect people who will vote for gay marriage."

And so, the plan now, according to Murray, is to come back next year with another set of domestic-partnership rights. "We've got a long way to go to reach marriage equality," Murray said. "We'll come back with another bill next year with another set of rights, and we'll keep doing it until we reach marriage equality." recommended