The Senate’s Wednesday-night passage of legislation legalizing gay marriage in Washington State means that now the House of Representatives will have a chance to vote, sometime within the next few days to a week. The Senate’s 28-21 vote represented the larger hurdle–supporters are confident they have more than enough votes in the House.

Senate Bill 6239, publicly supported by Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Vulcan, opens the definition of marriage to between “two persons” (with the U.S. Supreme Court we have, this phrasing does open the door to corporate marriage). The addition of protections for religious institutions to continue practicing a less feature-rich form of marriage was enough to draw support from four Republican senators, though three Democrats voted against the bill.

The Nays were: Senators Baumgartner, Becker, Benton, Carrell, Delvin, Ericksen, Hargrove, Hewitt, Holmquist Newbry, Honeyford, King, Morton, Padden, Parlette, Roach, Schoesler, Sheldon, Shin, Stevens, Swecker, and Zarelli. But they could not rain on primary sponsor Ed Murray‘s parade. He would not call a “nay” vote a vote for bigotry, he said, but then neither could a “yea” be construed as an assault on family or religion.

“Marriage,” he insisted, “is how society says you are a family.”

But as in a fairy tale, the people whose antipathy has disinvited them from the wedding can’t help trying to spoil it. Following Governor Gregoire’s promised signature–“Tonight we saw the best of Washington and our leaders,” she said, after the vote–opponents of the legislation will have until June 6 to put gay marriage up to a public vote this year. According to Publicola:

If they submit what appears to be enough signatures (a minimum of 120,577 valid signatures are required to certify a referendum), according to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed’s spokesman Dave Ammons, the new law would be in a state of “abeyance” until voters have their say on the referendum in November and the election is certified.

If the referendum signature-gathering falls short, gay marriage could begin June 7, 2012. If it’s successful, and the public still approves the legislation, gay marriage would be legal as of December 7, 2012.