OLYMPIA – When 19 gay couples came to Olympia to fight for the right to marry on Tuesday, they were greeted on the Capitol lawn by more than 5,000 opponents of same-sex marriage.
“It doesn’t matter to me if you’re looking at it from a Christian, secular or legal perspective,” said Larry Sundquist, 52, of Mill Creek. “The law is very clear already: Gay marriage undermines the foundation of our society, our families.”
Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government organized the “Mayday for Marriage” rally, the largest demonstration at the Capitol this year. It preceded the first hearing of a state Supreme Court case that could make Washington the second state after Massachusetts to legalize gay marriage.
Members of religious organizations said they are deeply upset that the traditional marriage between a man and woman could change. They fear allowing same-sex couples to marry would be disastrous, and voiced their opinion with songs, speeches and signs.
“It’s a slippery slope,” said Daryl Bursch, a Spokane resident and event director for Mayday for Marriage. “They’re not just asking for a license to marry, they’re asking for tolerance.”
The demonstration was part religious revival and part picnic. Families sang along to worship music played over a loudspeaker while the smells of cooking hamburgers and hot dogs wafted from a barbecue run by Services for the Blind.
Supporters of gay marriage also had a presence at the Capitol. Throngs of activists flanked the steps to the Temple of Justice, and just down the street plaintiffs in the case met with American Civil Liberties Union attorneys at a hotel to prepare for the hearing.
“We just want our family to have the same protection under the law that other families have,” said Brenda Bauer, one of the 38 plaintiffs hoping to overturn the state’s 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which bans same-sex marriages.
She and her partner, Celia Castle, were married in Multnomah County, Ore., in March 2004. They currently live with their two daughters in Seattle.
The Rev. Joe Fuiten, senior pastor at Cedar Park Assembly of God Church in Bothell, disagrees that the two should be allowed to marry in Washington state, much less raise children.
“It is the birthright of every child to be raised in a healthy family by the child’s mother and father,” he said at a news conference on the Capitol steps earlier in the morning.
Fuiten is president of Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government, a Christian political organization that sponsored the rally. Several other local church congregations, including Northshore Baptist Church in Bothell and Westgate Chapel in Edmonds, attended the rally.
Sen. Val Stevens, R-Arlington, was one of 16 speakers who claimed that same-sex marriage is harmful to society.
“Like it or not, gay marriage isn’t marriage,” she said. “It’s not what we in the community want to go forward.”
But some members of younger generations do.
Trevor Potter skipped school to hold a cardboard sign that read “Adam + Ed.”
“I’m not gay or anything, but it’s just weird to have a law where people can’t make their own choices,” said Potter, a 16-year-old junior at Capitol High School in Olympia.
“People on the other side of the road don’t understand how hard it is to be gay in America.”
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