There are now enough votes to pass marriage equality in Washington state, the Associated Press is reporting. Earlier this afternoon, State Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D) pledged to support the legislation, “providing the deciding vote in the Senate to legalize gay marriage in Washington state.” From her statement:

“I know this announcement makes me the so-called 25th vote, the vote that ensures passage. That’s neither here nor there. If I were the first or the seventh or the 28th vote, my position would not be any different. I happen to be the 25th because I insisted on taking this much time to hear from my constituents and to sort it out for myself, to reconcile my religious beliefs with my beliefs as an American, as a legislator, and as a wife and mother who cannot deny to others the joys and benefits I enjoy.”

Just last week, Haugen told her constituents during a town hall, “I will tell you they will not have the votes in the state Senate without a vote of the people.” She represents a Republican-leaning district and justified her opposition by saying, “I must represent the entire 10th District and we have a lot of evangelicals…for me personally this is a tough issue, one of the toughest.”

Opponents of marriage equality have pledged to put marriage equality on the ballot and allow residents to vote on gay people’s marriages. But a poll conducted by the University of Washington Center for Survey Research in October found that 55 percent of voters in Washington “would support a state gay marriage law if it’s approved by the Legislature.” A substantial percentage of people who prefer ‘domestic partnership’ also said they would vote yes to keep same sex marriage if passed by the legislature, including “54 percent of self-described Independents and 57 percent of self-described moderates.”

Ken Hutcherson, Washington’s leading anti-gay pastor, ranted against same-sex marriage in his testimony before the Senate Government Operations Committee this morning, arguing that by approving marriage equality, lawmakers would have to assume that they “know better than God”:

HUTCHERSON: I think that you are saying, as a committee and as a legislature that you know better than God, since you think that it is a very minded, bigoted, not understanding and loving thing to limit marriage to one man and one woman…If you pass this bill you’re just as narrow minded, you are just as bigoted and you’re just as unloving to everything and everyone who wants to get married outside of one man and one woman, two men and two women. But since you think God is not smart enough to make it fair, you’re saying that you’re smart enough to make it fair.

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Jennifer Roback Morse, president of the Ruth Institute, also condemned same-sex couples for filing “petty” complaints of discrimination, including lawsuits against Bed & Breakfasts that refuse to rent a double rooms to gays and lesbians. “They would have gladly rented them separate rooms, but that was not good enough,” she remarked. Watch it:

Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) announced her evolution toward same-sex marriage and pledged to legalize the practice before the end of the legislative session. The state legislature is reportedly just one vote away from approving the measure.

In their crusade against excessive government, several Republican-led states have made it a priority to purge any laws they deem irrelevant or outdated from their books. But they’ve gone out of their way to spare laws that promote conservative social mores and discrimination against gays.

Last Friday Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) released a list of 51 laws he recommends that the legislature repeal. An obsolete state statute criminalizing sodomy was not among them:

Gov. Sam Brownback created the Office of the Repealer to recommend the elimination of out-of-date, unreasonable and burdensome state laws that build up in any bureaucracy over time.

For gay men and lesbians, there seemed one particularly obvious candidate: Kansas Statute 21-3505.

That would be the “criminal sodomy” statute, which prohibits same-sex couples from engaging in oral or anal sex. The law was rendered unenforceable nearly a decade ago by a United States Supreme Court ruling, but it remains enshrined in the state’s legal code.

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas struck down anti-sodomy laws as unconstitutional, Kansas’ statute has no force and effect. Yet Republicans are determined to keep it on the books as a purely symbolic gesture of their condemnation of gay couples. Of course, anti-sodomy laws also make oral and anal sex among consenting heterosexual couples a crime as well.

Kansas Republicans’ decision to keep the sodomy law in place is reminiscent of a move by Florida Republicans last year. During a culling of outdated and rarely enforced laws, GOP lawmakers spared one measure from the 1800s that makes “cohabitation” of unmarried couples a a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by $500 or up to 60 days in jail.

Rick Santorum told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Friday that he would never change his opposition to same-sex marriage because it does not reflect “God’s will for us.” The former Pennsylvania senator — who regularly claims that marriages result in stronger and economically viable families — also reiterated his support from outlawing and restricting marriage in New York and the five other states that allow gay and lesbian people to marry:

MORGAN: Given your stance on gay marriage, for example, could you see any circumstances where you might change that in a way that you hardened your position on an issue like abortion, could you see yourself potentially softening your position on gay marriage?

SANTORUM: No, you know, marriage is an institution that existed before governments existed. It’s something that reflects nature and reflects God and God’s will for us. And both from the standpoint of faith and reason it makes all the sense in the world. And it’s beneficial for society. [...]

MORGAN: So when you say you respect their rights, isn’t their legal right in New York now to get married?

SANTORUM: Well, it’s a law. But it’s not a natural right. I mean, it’s a law. There are lots of laws that are not rights. [...]

MORGAN: Would you change the law?

SANTORUM: I would change the law to make a uniform definition of marriage in this country, because I think — like the uniform definition for life –

MORGAN: If you were president you would try and outlaw gay marriage? You would make it illegal to get married?…Are you going to try to make it illegal for gay people to get married?

SANTORUM: All I would say is that marriage has been voted on 32 times in this country in 32 states, from Maine to California and 32 times the people of this country have said that marriage is between a man and a woman and the public should have a say about this.

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As Senate and House committees in Washington prepare to hear testimony on legalizing same-sex marriage, Ken Hutcherson — the state’s moste vocal anti-gay pastor — is comparing Gov. Christine Gregoire’s (D) support for equality to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln:

HUCHERSON: She might as well change her name to John Wilkes Booth because what she’s doing now is trying to put a bullet in the head of one of the greatest traditions that has ever existed and has built our society, and that is marriage between one man and one woman.

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Hutcherson — who famously officiated at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding — has previously claimed that “the behavior of gays ought to be regulated by the government for health reasons,” and warned that God would unleash his judgment upon this nation unless it banned the promotion of homosexuality. “God hates soft men,” he proclaimed in 2008, and “God hates effeminate men.” Hutcherson went on to say, “If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end.”