WA State court upholds gay marriage ban
The state Supreme Court today upheld Washington’s law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, rejecting the argument of 19 same-sex couples that they’ve been unfairly denied the right to wed.In a splintered decision, Justice Barbara Madsen wrote that the state’s marriage law was enacted to “promote procreation and to encourage stable families.”"The legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers the State’s legitimate interests in procreation and the well-being of children.”
She wrote that the same-sex couples failed to prove that they had a fundamental right to marry, or that the state’s 1998 Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional.
The 5-4 ruling — signed by Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and Justice Charles Johnson — also noted a hardship for same-sex couples, however, and suggested that the legislature “may want to re-examine the impact of the marriage laws on all citizens of this state.”
Very similar in outcome to the New York case. I expect, and hope, that these decisions will take the wind out of the sails of the anti-gay mairriage Contitutional Ammendent folks. I also hope that the gay marriage proponants will see these court cases as a reason to re-evaluate their strategy and work to convince the people that gay marriage is the right thing to do, rather than convincing the courts.
Homosexuality is very much an evolving social issue. I expect that before too long most states will allow gay marriage and gays as a whole will be more accepted. There has been a lot of progress in that area already of course, and I see no reason to expect that will change.
