Gay marriage activists in Oregon recently gave up their bid to redefine marriage by letting the people decide. Now, Washington opts to skip the people and push for gay marriage in the legislature:

State Rep. Jim Moeller announced Thursday he’ll join dozens of other legislators next week in introducing a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in the 2012 Legislature.

... Washington has one of the most sweeping domestic partnership laws in the nation. But gay marriage legislation has failed to pass repeatedly, most recently in the 2011 session, when a bill Moeller co-sponsored with state Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, failed to come to a vote. Moeller and Murray are among the Legislature’s openly gay members.

... Washington’s 1998 Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage as between a man and a woman. It survived a legal challenge when the Washington Supreme Court upheld it in 2006. -- The Columbian