"Honey, will you register me?"

Governor Signs Wa. Partner Bill

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: April 21, 2007 - 1:00 pm ET

(Olympia, Washington) Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law Saturday legislation to give gay and lesbian couples some of the rights that come with marriage.

The domestic partnership bill will create a domestic partnership registry with the state, and provide enhanced rights for same-sex couples, including hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations and inheritance rights when there is no will.

To be registered, couples would have to share a home, not be married or in a domestic relationship with someone else, and be at least 18. Unmarried, heterosexual senior couples would also be eligible for domestic partnerships if one partner were at least 62. Lawmakers said that provision was included to help seniors who are at risk of losing pension rights and Social Security benefits if they remarry.

Gregoire signed the measure Saturday morning in the state Reception Room in front of LGBT civil rights activists who had fought for passage of the law.The bill passed its final hurdle earlier this month.

In January during Senate hearings a woman whose same-sex partner died as a result of flooding s month earlier told lawmakers that she had difficulty getting into the hospital to see her dying lover. In emotional testimony Charlene Strong told how partner Kate Fleming got trapped in the basement studio where she ran an audio company. As the water rose she was unable to open the door to get out. Rescuers finally broke through and rushed Fleming to an area hospital.
But at the hospital Strong was told told she could not be with her dying partner of nearly 10 years because she was not a relative. Finally officials relented when a family member interceded. Fleming died moments later.

Even as she tried to plan Fleming's funeral Strong faced roadblocks. Strong told committee members that if they had been an opposite-sex married couple, or had civil union rights she would have had no trouble.

Last July the Washington Supreme Court upheld the state's so-called Defense of Marriage Act that limits marriage to opposite-sex couples. The court cited the argument that marriage was designed for the procreation of children. (MY NOTE: by this logic, if a heterosexual couple was known to be unable to biologically conceive, should right to marriage be denied them as well?) But the court noted the legislature could overturn the law or amend it to include gay pairs.

Gay and lesbian couples denied marriage licenses filed suit in 2004. Two lower courts ruled that the state law barring gay marriage was unconstitutional and the the high court heard arguments in the case in March 2005.
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