After Christine Gregoire thumped Dino Rossi back in November—let's pause to recall how sweet her victory was before we get back to fuming about Gregoire's budget—I asked State Rep. Jamie Pedersen if the legislature was going to stick to its incremental strategy on granting marriage rights to same-sex couples in Washington state. Under State Sen. Ed Murray and Pedersen's leadership the legislature had passed two domestic partner bills in two years; each bestowed some of the rights of marriage, the rights the state controls, but not all of 'em. With Gregoire's impressive victory, and the Dems holding on to their super majority in the state legislature, would they stick with their step-a-time strategy or would they go for it? Pedersen couldn't say.

But it was clear back in mid-November that state Dems hadn't paid a political price for backing marriage-like rights for same-sex couples—and now we've got a study from the Freedom to Marry which shows that politicians who support same-sex marriage are more likely to be re-elected, not less. So it wasn't a surprise when Murray and Pedersen called a press conference to announce that they were going for "everything but marriage," that the third domestic partnership bill would be the last.

"A three-year-incrimental process seemed incremental enough," Ed Murray told me when I asked why they decided to go for all of the rest of the rights. "The support was there to finish it this year, and I think we should take advantage of that support."

What has struck Murray—a veteran of Olympia's pitched battles over gay rights—is how little opposition there is to completing Washington state's domestic partnership law.

"The most remarkable thing is how unremarkable this is," said Murray. "We’re not having a culture war down here about domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian families. Even two years ago, three sessions ago, domestic partnership was a very controversial issues. Four sessions ago the gay civil rights bill passed by a single vote in the state senate. Our support has increased a great deal in a short period of time."

Murray credits the growing support for gay equality—and for gay marriage rights in particular—to the increased visibility of gay and lesbian families.

"When people understand what gay and lesbian families actually are," said Murray, "when they know us, when they see what are struggles, they support us. Every time."

Murray and Pedersen have been upfront all along that legalizing same-sex marriage is the ultimate goal of their three-part push for full domestic partnership rights. Gay marriage bills have also been introduced in the state house and senate, and the house bill has 48 sponsors—just two shy of the number it would need to pass out of the house.

"We're very close to winning full marriage equality in the house," Murray said. "It will take longer in the senate. The senate moves slower in general, and it hasn't always been a very responsive to our community. That's why I ran for the senate."