Editorial
A fair-minded ruling for marriage rights

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The first reason for marriage always has been to provide for children. In the past, when homosexuality was underground, the issue of gay families with children came up only rarely.

But with in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood and today's rules of adoption, all that has changed. The judge was stating a simple fact when he wrote that from now on, "Many, many children are going to be raised in the homes of gay and lesbian partners."

Further, he wrote, "to harm certain of these children by devaluing" their families serves no legitimate state interest. And he is right. It serves no public interest whatever.

It may seem odd to cite the Washington Constitution of 1889 — with references to privileges, immunities and due process — to support gay marriage, an idea that would have shocked the men who wrote it. Certainly, there is no tradition of gay marriage in Washington.

But there was no tradition of black-white marriage in Virginia in 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the law that forbade a marriage between white and non-white adults. That ruling, cited by Downing, came when people began to stand up and demand it, and not before.

This case comes at a similar time. A group is raising a demand for its rights. That they didn't push this hard a decade ago, or a century ago, is immaterial. We deal with the issue now.

The rights of marriage in our state include some specific ones involving property ownership, pension benefits and spousal testimony in court. In Washington, the law allows the spouse of a commercial fisherman who has died to renew the fishing license, but a live-in partner cannot, Downing noted.

Some argue that gay marriage cannot be compared to any previous change because it alters the definition of what marriage is. But the ruling — which the judge stayed pending state Supreme Court review — does not change the institution. It merely widens who may participate in it.

Marriages between men and women will remain as strong, or not-so-strong, as they were before yesterday's ruling, which was not made to change American culture but to address changes the people have made on their own.