Legislature must end discrimination

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, July 29, 2006

In her plurality opinion upholding Washington’s discriminatory restriction of the right to marry to mixed gender couples, Justice Barbara Madsen states that the legal limitation of marriage to mixed gender couples “bears a reasonable relationship to legitimate state interests – procreation and child-rearing.”

She is saying, in effect, that the Legislature was entitled to ignore reason and sociological evidence and to enshrine prejudice in the laws of our state. The assumption behind these statements is that marriage is primarily, or even exclusively, about bearing and raising a couple’s own biological children. This assumption is a slap in the face to all children, adopted or otherwise, who were raised by people other than their biological parents.

It diminishes the committed relationships of those of us who have married (or remarried) later in life with no intention of having children together. Arguments against same gender marriage are little more than weak rationalizations for discrimination. They represent the imposition of a particular, narrow set of religious values (values by no means shared by all Christians) upon civil society.

Those who believe in the equal inherent dignity and worth of God’s gay and lesbian children must now intensify our efforts to end discrimination in our state through the legislative process. The Legislature and Gov. Chris Gregoire took a big step in that direction earlier this year when they added sexual orientation to the human characteristics protected against discrimination in housing, employment and other areas by Washington’s law against discrimination.

The Legislature now must do what the Supreme Court lacked the courage and the wisdom to do. It must repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and end legal discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in our state once and for all.

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson

Sultan