As www.denverpost.com announces, a referendum on an expansion of Washington’s domestic partnership law for gay couples has qualified for the November ballot, Washington Election Commission representatives said Monday, August 31.

The “everything but marriage” legislative document broadens gay and lesbian couples’ rights of domestic partnerships by granting them all the remaining state-provided benefits presently extended only to married heterosexual couples.

According to www.deseretnews.com, the new law was supposed to take effect from July 26. But the referendum campaign put it on hold, and the fate of the law now depends on November 3 state voters’ decision.

It would expand the domestic partnership law passed in 2007 that granted gay couples hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations, and inheritance rights when there is no will.

Lawmakers expanded that law again in 2008 to give gay domestic partners standing under laws covering probate and trusts, community property and guardianship.

The new benefits discussed in the referendum version for gay couples range from adoption and child support rights to public employment benefits heterosexual couples have — although any benefits that cost the state money, such as pensions, are delayed until 2014 because of the state’s recession-fueled budget problems.

If the referendum leads to a rejection of the law’s expansion, legislation approved in 2007 and 2008 would be retained, but it would roll back the same-sex partners’ additional rights granted in the “everything but marriage” bill.