Equal Rights Washington News and Updates

Advocates for the court's reconsideration of the case argue that the majority ruling was flawed. We're not equipped to make that legal judgment. But we will suggest that it is in the best interests of the state for the justices to ensure that this landmark decision, which overruled two Superior Court findings, has been thoroughly and conclusively examined.

For example, Washington's citizens might benefit from more clarity on how allowing same-gender marriages would undermine the state's interest in promoting procreation through marriage between mixed-gender couples.

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In any event, the onus remains with the Legislature, as it likely would have been even if the Supreme Court rejected DOMA. We encourage legislative leaders to propose some form of civil union that can honor both the institution of marriage and the civil rights of committed, loving same-gender partners.

Lost in all the sententious rhetoric about child-rearing are the very real families of same-sex couples. The court's decision ignores amicus briefs submitted by social workers, children's rights advocates and psychologists in support of same-sex marriage. Those who believe that the DOMA's court victory is a triumph for our state's children should talk to these countless families, such as that of community leader Cantor David Serkin-Poole and his partner Michael, who have adopted three children with special needs. Because of the Serkin-Pooles, these children have had all the love and care that all children deserve but, sadly, do not always find.

Our community should be proud to be represented by state legislators who have worked to promote a society of inclusion, especially long-time public servant, Rep. Fred Jarrett, R-Mercer Island. While the court has been derelict in its duty, the Legislature now has the chance to right this wrong. When some citizens are deprived of equal protection under the law under the pretext of a greater good, no one is a winner.

While one cannot doubt that this is a part, perhaps the most important part, of marriage's history, Americans do not limit marriage's benefits exclusively to children. Marriage serves adults as well. If adults benefit from marriage, we are forced to question whether the benefits of marriage should, or even can under the state constitution, be limited to heterosexual couples.

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To the extent that marriages are about more than just reproduction, discriminating on the basis of gender violates one of the traditional reasons that Americans have supported marriage. We each deserve the help of another. Life is hard enough.

The aid of a loving companion devoted to our welfare is sometimes the biggest benefit we have in negotiating life's obstacles. Limiting marriages to heterosexuals denies gays and lesbians one of the biggest public and private benefits of marriage.

One of the first complaints under the state's new gay-rights law comes with a surprising twist: A former Honeywell employee is challenging employers' ability to provide domestic-partner benefits to same-sex couples but not unmarried straight partners.

Dearly beloved, it is time to consider elbowing the ministers, rabbis, clerics, priests and Internet-ordained Elvis impersonators out of the legal part of the marriage business.

Step back now. I did not say anything about getting rid of God or marriage.

But, like the Rev. Mark Travis of All Pilgrims Christian Church, the Rev. Diane Darling of Alki Congregational United Church of Christ and at least a dozen other religious leaders in Seattle, I say amen to their idea of examining what the heck a minister is doing by acting as the state's quasi-legal middleman or woman anyway.

The Washington Legislature should create a new law extending couples' rights to gay citizens next year.

We are not talking about overturning the state's defense of marriage law. Nor do we suggest the Legislature try to overturn the recent Supreme Court decision upholding that law.

But we believe there is a way for gay couples to have rights such as spousal benefits for insurance, and the protections of laws for child custody, adoption and other domestic relations, without a state-sanctioned marriage.

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The gay marriage debate has polarized many. But it is the job of political leaders to try to find common ground. What is it about the institution of marriage gay citizens desire? Is there a way we can grant them some of the political and institutional advantages marriages create in our society without forcing people opposed to gay marriage to swallow an idea that they find morally objectionable?

Thanks to the court ruling it's clear in Washington that legislators are the ones who will have to seek answers to those questions and seek solutions that treat every Washington citizen fairly.

Some ask us why we wouldn't be satisfied with civil unions. Our answer is simple: for the same reasons that any opposite-sex couple would find them distasteful. Ask any couple about to be wed, or any couple celebrating their 50th anniversary, if they would trade their marriage for a civil union. And if civil union were indeed the same as marriage, who would object? But civil unions are not marriage in so many ways, and the word "marriage" is the word our society uses to define and describe lifelong, loving relationships.

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For the same reasons that opposite-sex couples want and need to be married — because they need the legal protections that flow from civil marriage, because they promise to protect and provide for each other forever, and because they love each other — we want, deserve, and need to be married, too.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, August 9, 2006
Gay couples ask for more time to consider challenge

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Lawyers for gay and lesbian couples will get two more weeks to possibly challenge the state Supreme Court's ruling upholding Washington's gay marriage ban.

Plaintiffs' attorneys still haven't decided whether to ask the high court to reconsider its 5-4 decision, which held that the state's law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples was constitutional.

The court has agreed to move the deadline for a reconsideration filing from Aug. 15 to Aug. 29, while the lawyers consider their next move.

"The longer we have to think about it, the better off we are," said Lisa Stone, director of the Northwest Women's Law center. "We are analyzing every conceivable option, and nothing's off the table at this point."

I've been thinking a lot about motherhood lately, from my own childhood to my potential future as a parent. I lost my mother a couple of weeks ago. She and my sister were shot while hiking the same trails we grew up on.

An AE2 parent approached me at the school memorial. After telling me how much her kids loved Mary, she pointed out her female partner across the crowd. She added that my mother had always made their family feel included in the library.

I feel especially proud to be Mary Cooper's daughter in moments like these. It was the love and justice that filled her shelves and curriculum that made her such a powerful educator. She always made everyone feel included.

Amidst these small celebrations and the pain of losing my mother and sister, I was devastated to learn that our Supreme Court upheld the ban on same-sex marriages ["State Supreme Court upholds gay marriage ban," Local News, July 26].

That my future family would be seen as a threat to anyone, rather than a celebration of everything beautiful that's been passed on to me, is heartbreaking.

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As I follow my mom's courageous example, I will not let fear dictate who I am or who I love. But creating change of this magnitude takes many acts of courage.

[Read complete item . . .]

The Defense of Marriage Act is constitutional because the legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children’s biological parents.

So wrote Washington Supreme Court Justice Barbara A. Madsen last week in a majority opinion after the court’s 5-4 decision regarding Washington state’s 1998 gay marriage ban. In a close and convoluted call (six opinions were handed down), the court overturned two lower court rulings and upheld the ban.

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People in this state who are concerned about the simple matter of equal rights, a founding principle of this country, will have to wait for the battle to head to either the legislature or the voters.

[Read complete item . . .]

I could not disagree more with your editorial in response to the Washington Supreme Court's ruling on the same-sex marriage case ("Supreme Court: I do's to do," July 27). The court made it clear that the Legislature has the power to grant full and equal marriage rights to same-sex couples. You think that civil unions are good enough.

I have spent my entire adult life as a de facto second-class citizen. The gay and lesbian community finally had the courage to say enough, and argue in front of the justices that we want to be recognized as first-class citizens. They said no, we lost. Now you propose civil unions, a law that actually codifies our second-class status, and expect us to sign documents to say we agree with that conclusion in order to get the benefits we need for our families. A list of benefits limited to those the majority finds us worthy of. What an insult.

The backlash against gay marriage has produced strong passions and weak arguments. It's no longer enough to state in court that marriage has always been for straight couples, ergo it should be only for straight couples. This time the courts ended up arguing on procreationist grounds, pretty shaky legal terrain.

"It is the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting of children, that is the sine qua non of civil marriage," wrote Chief Justice Margaret Marshall in the Massachusetts decision that extended marital rights to gays and brought conservative wrath down on her head.

Marshall has been demonized as an "activist judge" — a label pinned on the author of any ruling you dislike. Now, in an anxious attempt to put their courts into neutral, judges in Washington and New York have thrown logic into reverse.

The pair's costly documents may hold, but what about those who can't afford attorneys? What if the couple is traveling when trouble strikes? A marriage license is registered and can be easily verified. A medical power of attorney? Not so much.

And all of this ignores the big hurt.

"Not giving legal recognition to our relationship allows others to denigrate us and implies that we are less than human," Moseley said -- all supposedly in the cause of protecting children.

Well, Moseley and Jones are adopting a child in need of a stable home. In this state,there are countless gay and lesbian parents just like them. And their lack of ability to marry "opens up all kinds of legal problems in dealing with schools, health care and other decisions," Moseley points out.

I'm happy to report that the clouds have cleared from my eyes, for
while reading the state supreme court decision upholding Washington's
Defense of Marriage Act, I had an epiphany. All my brooding and
blaming and finger pointing had been misplaced. The divorce wasn't my
fault after all. It wasn't even my ex's.

It was the gays'.

In Vermont, which created civil unions in 2000, momentum for full marriage equality has stalled. In California, by contrast, activists took an incremental approach, first getting legislators to create a limited package of benefits for "domestic partners," then adding more benefits each year until finally the state legislature saw no real difference between heterosexual marriage and gay domestic partnership. As a result, in 2005, the California legislature decided to broaden the state's marriage law to include gay couples. (Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill and the California Supreme Court is now considering a lawsuit seeking same-sex marriage rights.)

Murray, covering all the bases, seemed to endorse this approach as well, promising to introduce 400 bills next session—one to address each of the rights that same-sex couples in this state are denied by not being allowed to marry.

"We're going to paper the place with bills," Murray said at the rally. "Brick by brick, let's build the institution of marriage for gays and lesbians in the Washington State Legislature."

My longtime partner and I were married earlier this year after consulting with a lawyer about how to do this. We realized marriage was a legal shortcut of practical value. Yes, we mostly married for love; few people marry for the express purpose of being able to share a hospice. But deconstructing marriage helped me realize that the legal benefits, while unexciting in themselves, are not inconsequential. We didn't need a piece of paper from the state to make our marriage feel important. But the civil benefits that came with that paper were real.

Such benefits don't justify the special and exalted status that marriage has within our society. But they are valuable enough that denying them to same-sex couples is a form of discrimination that has no rational justification.

In this case, it may be that the many opinions — the main opinion, the concurring opinion, and the three dissents — precisely reflect where we are as a society on this issue. Ambivalent. Not quite comfortable with gay and lesbian couples sharing in the mainstream. Almost there, but really only ready to affirm the denial of participation, hope for someone else with power to change it, and say quickly and parenthetically, "Not that there's anything wrong with that ... . Some of my best friends are gay."

A fractured state Supreme Court last week declared this state's Defense of Marriage Act constitutional - a ruling that effectively bars homosexual couples from marriage.

The 5-4 decision had three majority opinions and three dissents among nine justices - showing just how divisive the gay marriage issue is in the state's highest court. That division is mirrored in the Legislature and among residents of Washington state. This is one of those issues that evokes strong emotions because it incorporates personal beliefs and values, civil rights protections, religion and politics.

It's a no-win situation.

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And therein lies the middle ground that lawmakers should strive for in January. A civil union statute giving homosexual couples equal rights to married couples is a reasonable compromise. It's time to put this divisive issue behind us once and for all.