Comparing the current push for gay marriage to her generation's fight for civil rights for African Americans, Gov. Chris Gregoire, as widely expected, said she will put her name on this session's gay marriage bill. Gregoire said allowing domestic partnerships while not letting gays have state marriage licenses was the same as the discarded  "separate, but equal of the past."

She said:

For decades, that argument was used to keep African-Americans separate at schools, apartments, and drinking fountains. After all, the argument went, those separate places were just as good. But we all knew separate is not equal and finally the law caught up.

While I understand the experiences of racial minorities and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans are not identical, laws that keep some Americans in a separate status are inherently unjust.

It is now time for equality of our gay and lesbian citizens, and that means marriage.

Gregoire stressed that the bill would not force churches to perform gay marriages—"churches can decide whom they will and won't marry ... [but] it's not okay for the state to discriminate ... States cannot be in the business of discrimination."[pullquote]Can it be that today’s young Americans see sexual orientation discrimination as just as unacceptable as my generation saw racial discrimination?—Gov. Chris Gregoire[/pullquote]

Gregoire was asked why it took her seven years into her term to come out for gay marriage. She said she'd been on her own "journey with my religion" and recognized that despite being a Catholic, she now realized she could not stand by while the state told children of gay couples that their families and "their parents' love were not equal" to other families.

She admitted that she'd been privately "uncomfortable" with her public position for the last seven years. "I feel better today than I have during the last seven years," she said drawing big applause from the gay rights activists and legislators who flanked her. (Four gay legislators, out of the six in the Olympia, stood behind Gregoire: Sen. Ed Murray and Reps. Marko Liias, Laurie Jinkins, and Jamie Pedersen.) She also noted that the state was still allowing basic discrimination against gays and lesbians until 2006 before the legislature passed a gay civil rights bill, theorizing that the state wasn't ready for gay marriage yet.

Murray, who sponsored and passed the 2006 bill, was asked if he had the votes now for gay marriage. (Murray has been introducing the bill nominally for years.) "We're not there yet," Murray said candidly. "We're a few votes short in the senate. I believe we can get there." Bills need 25 votes in the senate. The Democrats have a 27-22 advantage, but a few conservative Democrats and most Republicans are against gay marriage.

Gregoire broke in: "Can I be clear? We're going to get the votes and it will come to my desk. And I will sign it." The crowd broke into applause again.

Washington would be the seventh state in the nation to legalize gay marriage. It's legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York plus the District of Columbia. "And here in Washington by the Suquamish Tribe," Gregoire added.

Addressing, the standard arguments against gay marriage—that it will weaken the institution of marriage, Gregoire scoffed, "Is this a role of the state? If so, it has failed miserably with a divorce rate among heterosexual couples now at about 50 percent." She also challenged the argument that marriage was supposedly about procreation, noting that some straight couples can't have children, adopt, use in-vitro fertilization, and also choose not to have kids at all—yet they're allowed to marry.

During the Q&A after her remarks Gregoire cited polls that show younger people support gay marriage. "Can it be that today’s young Americans see sexual orientation discrimination as just as unacceptable as my generation saw racial discrimination? Can it be that our children knew some kids on the playground who had two moms instead of a single mom, or two dads instead of a mom and dad? ... [That] they've grown up with friends who are raised by gay couples," she theorized in part. Indeed, Gregoire continually came back to the idea that gay marriage was the calling of "my daughters' generation."

"I join my daughters," Gregoire, 64, said.