SHB 1443, which adds sexual orientation to existing Washington civil rights
laws, was caught in the Senate Ways and Means Committee last week, after
having easily passed the House.  There were not enough votes to pass it out of
committee and onto the Senate floor.  (An option of having the Senate
_yank_ it out of committee was deemed an affront to the committee system.) 
So a final attempt has been made to pass the bill onto the Senate by attaching
it as an amendment to another bill which has already passed the Senate
and is headed to the House.  (The other bill is a measure to prevent 
discrimination against those with seeing-eye dogs, ironically sponsored by a 
fundamentalist Senator; pretty clever, huh?  The Lt. Governor has promised to 
find the bills "compatible," the only obstacle to getting it on to the Senate
floor after the House vote--no more committees!)
	The bill/s should reach the Senate today (after passing the House,
which is expected) where it could win or lose by a matter of a few votes. 
The actual vote could be any day this week, but it must be acted on by the
end of Friday, or else it will die.
	It is urgent that those who live in Washington State call their
legislators to support the Gay/Lesbian Civil Rights Bill.  The Legislative
Hotline is 1-800-562-6000.  If you can, please put pressure on
(Democratic) Majority Leader Marc Gaspard of Tacoma, who is demonstrating
no leadership on this issue; it is "not a priority" for him.  Remind your
Democratic legislators that the state Democratic platform committs the
Democratic party to gay and lesbian civil rights.
	Finally, there will be a demonstration on the Capitol Steps in
Olympia at 7pm on the day of the vote.  What day is that?  Call the
Privacy Fund at 206-292-2486 to find out as they should have 24 hrs.
advance notice.