Bloglander

With less than a week until Election Day, two of Washington's ballot fights continue to get national attention.

Referendum 74 would uphold the state legislature's legalization of same-sex marriage in Washington, and Initiative 502 would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana. (Read the measures for yourself in the state voter guidehere.)

This article about a Seattle lesbian who struggled to get access to her partner while she was on her deathbed has been showing up across the web. And the Seattle Times' half-true ruling on the latest anti-R74 ad, about the threat of children learning about same-sex marriage in school, was "aggregated" by the Huffington Post here.

This New York Times feature out today highlights celebrities and regular people who are using their straight weddings as a chance to advocate for legal same-sex marriage, tacking it to this year's ballot questions in Maryland, Maine and Minnesota and Washington.

Washington poll news has been picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle,and the New Yorker has pondered the potential of ballot-approved marriage equality more than once.

Washington's fight to light up legally is also grabbing headlines.

Allen St. Pierre, the Executive Director of marijuana reform group NORML boasted to the Huffington Post this week "the number of people getting to go into a voting both and pull a lever to change marijuana laws is unprecedented."

Celebrity travel guru Rick Steves' support of I-502 has made the SF Chronicle and that paper's blog reported on speculation that legal pot in Washington (or Colorado or Oregon) would destroy its Mexican competition.

The Washington Post counts pot legalization as one of the most important ballot measures in the nation this fall (gay marriage made that story too). And don't forget Time's piece or Esquire's look at the people fighting against legal marijuana, including those in the Evergreen State.

Happy reading!