Great news this after­noon: We final­ly have the votes to pass mar­riage equal­i­ty in the Wash­ing­ton State Legislature!

Min­utes ago, Sen­a­tor Mary Mar­garet Hau­gen — who had pre­vi­ous­ly said she was only will­ing to sup­port putting the issue on the bal­lot for a pub­lic vote — reversed her posi­tion and decid­ed to join the forces of equality.

Here’s the first few para­graphs of her state­ment:

I have received many let­ters, emails, phone calls, very heart­felt, from both sides of the issue. I’ve also received a num­ber of very neg­a­tive com­ments from both sides.

For some peo­ple, this is a sim­ple issue. I envy them. It has not been sim­ple or easy for me.

To some degree, this is gen­er­a­tional. Years ago I took excep­tion to my par­ents’ beliefs on cer­tain social issues, and today my chil­dren take excep­tion to some of mine. Times change, even if it makes us uncom­fort­able. I think we should all be uncom­fort­able some­time. None of us knows every­thing, and it’s impor­tant to have our beliefs ques­tioned. Only one being in this world is omni­scient, and it’s not me.

I have very strong Chris­t­ian beliefs, and per­son­al­ly I have always said when I accept­ed the Lord, I became more tol­er­ant of oth­ers. I stopped judg­ing peo­ple and try to live by the Gold­en Rule. This is part of my deci­sion. I do not believe it is my role to judge oth­ers, regard­less of my per­son­al beliefs. It’s not always easy to do that. For me per­son­al­ly, I have always believed in tra­di­tion­al mar­riage between a man and a woman. That is what I believe, to this day.

But this issue isn’t about just what I believe. It’s about respect­ing oth­ers, includ­ing peo­ple who may believe dif­fer­ent­ly than I. It’s about whether every­one has the same oppor­tu­ni­ties for love and com­pan­ion­ship and fam­i­ly and secu­ri­ty that I have enjoyed.

Sen­a­tor Hau­gen deserves a lot of cred­it for being will­ing to rethink her stance. Those of us at NPI who are Chris­tians don’t believe that legal­iz­ing mar­riage equal­i­ty is at odds with the teach­ings of Jesus Christ.

But even if it were (as many fun­da­men­tal­ists incor­rect­ly argue it is), Amer­i­ca is a nation found­ed on the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state.

That sep­a­ra­tion is what guar­an­tees us our reli­gious freedom.

Each reli­gion cer­tain­ly is with­in its rights to decide on its own def­i­n­i­tion of mar­riage. But it is immoral and improp­er for gov­ern­ment to dic­tate who can mar­ry whom. LGBT cou­ples in com­mit­ted rela­tion­ships who want to mar­ry should have the free­dom to do so. Mar­riage equal­i­ty is a mat­ter of equal rights under the law. We are very glad to see that Sen­a­tor Hau­gen has rec­og­nized that.

So is Sen­a­tor Ed Murray.

“I want to thank Sen. Mary Mar­garet Hau­gen for her deci­sion today,” Mur­ray said in a state­ment of his own. “I know that she takes her respon­si­bil­i­ty to her con­stituents and their com­mu­ni­ties very seri­ous­ly. I know she lis­tens to them. Her stand on an issue that is both so per­son­al and so con­tentious in every com­mu­ni­ty is tru­ly coura­geous. I believe Sen. Hau­gen has shown the upmost in thought­ful­ness and con­sid­er­a­tion – and her deci­sion means fam­i­lies across our state may step out of a spe­cial sec­ond class and into equal­i­ty this year.”

We at NPI wel­come the news that mar­riage equal­i­ty now has the votes to pass both the House and the Sen­ate. In a mat­ter of weeks, we hope to see it signed into law by Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire. That will be a great day.

We ful­ly expect that the reli­gious right will launch a ref­er­en­dum cam­paign to put the issue on the bal­lot in Novem­ber of 2012. We will do our part to urge vot­ers to uphold the law in the event they are suc­cess­ful in forc­ing a vote.