In Our View: State Fairer, More Loving

In December 2012, Washington became one of the early states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Now, as many couples in this state celebrate their fifth wedding anniversaries, it is time to also celebrate the fact that Washington is a more inclusive, welcoming and, yes, loving state than it used to be.

In other words, the dire predictions of gay-marriage opponents have not come to fruition. Allowing same-sex couples to marry has not redefined heterosexual marriage, nor has it diminished the meaning of traditional marriage. Instead, it has recognized that society has a vested interest in celebrating partners who are willing to make a lifelong commitment to one another.

Not that everybody believes this; we would not be so bold as to suggest that every citizen should support gay marriage simply because a majority of Washingtonians do. Individuals are welcome to cling to and express their beliefs, and many opponents of gay marriage find justification for their positions in religious teachings. That is to be respected.

Yet, many of the arguments put forth when Washington voters were considering Referendum 74, which passed with 54 percent of the vote in 2012, have proven to be unfounded. Among them is an assertion that clergy will be forced to perform gay marriages. That would violate the separation of church and state and, therefore, would be different from a commercial enterprise such as a baker. If government tried to compel a church to acknowledge gay marriage, we would argue just as forcefully against such compulsion as we have in favor of gay marriage.

Instead, the issue remains a simple one of fairness and equality. If government is going to be in the business of acknowledging marriages, that should apply to all consenting adults.

As recent articles in The Columbian detailed, such fairness has been among the benefits for couples who have married in this state. Reporter Patty Hastings detailed that there are 1,138 federal rights, benefits and privileges tied to marital status; depriving same-sex couples of those rights was shortsighted. As Paul Harris, a local 69-year-old man, told The Columbian: “I wanted what everyone else wants: the American Dream. I wanted to be recognized as the person who loves the person I’ve been with for 44 years.”

That recognition was a long time coming. In 1998, the state enacted a Defense of Marriage Act that limited unions to heterosexual couples. But public opinion has steadily tilted in the direction of inclusion, and in February 2012, Gov. Chris Gregoire signed legislation establishing full marriage rights for same-sex couples. Opponents mounted a challenge that placed the issue on the ballot, and in November of that year voters approved gay marriage.

In June 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that state laws prohibiting gay marriage were unconstitutional, requiring all states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That has strengthened this nation and moved us closer to embracing our professed ideals of inclusion and equal treatment for all. Notably, according to Pew Research Center, public support for gay marriage has grown from 35 percent in 2001 to 62 percent by June of this year. The guess here is that future generations will wonder what all the fuss was about and question why gay marriage was an issue in the first place.

In the past five years, nearly 18,000 same-sex couples have been married in Washington, including thousands in Clark County. The fact that they have the right to do so has been beneficial for our state.