During the mid-December storm that devastated the Puget Sound, Kate Fleming, an audiobook narrator, drowned when floodwaters trapped her in the basement of her Seattle home. Kate was so engrossed in her work, she never saw or heard the torrent as it roared downhill.
Charlene Strong, her partner of 10 years, was upstairs and reacted quickly but could not save Fleming. Charlene told of rushing to the hospital to be with Kate, but was turned away because she and Fleming were’t married. Strong said she had to get permission from Fleming’s family in Virginia before finally making it to her partner’s side.
The Fleming story was told to legislators pondering House Bill 1351 and Senate Bill 5336 and, along with other testimony, helped advance the domestic partnership legislation.
The law would set up a state registry of domestic partnerships at the Secretary of State’s Office. It would give them rights to visit a partner in the hospital, inherit property when there’s no will and make decisions on such matters as emergency health care and funeral arrangements.
The Herald-Republic editorialized that protecting the rights of same-sex couples “was a matter of simple fair play…Clearly, the idea is to allow the domestic partner the right to be a part of health-care and after-death decisions that are usually handled by a spouse in a traditional marriage setting.”
Debated for years, this limited legislation is all about fairness and basic human rights and its time has come. We’ll follow our Valley legislators closely on this issue.