Washington will vote to uphold or reject gay marriage law

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI – Four months after Governor Christine Gregoire signed Washington State’s gay marriage bill into law, opponents of the legislation have turned in way more than the 120,577 signatures they needed to get a repeal on the fall ballot.

The secretary of state’s office announced June 13 that the legislation’s opponents turned in 247,331 signatures. Washington State now joins three other states — Maryland, Maine and Minnesota — in putting same-sex marriage to the vote in November. So far, polls show that 54 percent of Washington State voters say same-sex couples should be able to marry.

Public Policy Polling found that 57 percent of Maryland’s voters would vote to uphold that state’s gay marriage law, while in Minnesota, the polling firm’s numbers indicate that support for amending the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage is waning, according to an advocate.com report. Polls in Maine also show that same-sex marriage support is trending up, after voters overturned the gay marriage law there in 2009.

Landing image source: happyplace.com

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

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