Source: Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Seattle -- Activists in Washington cheered Thursday's decision by California's highest court to grant full equality in marriage to all couples in that state, but were also heartened by the slow but steady progress toward equality since this state's highest court ruled that gay and lesbian couples are not entitled to full equality.

"This is huge. California is really going to change the landscape," said Joshua Friedes, advocacy director for Equal Rights Washington, a group that lobbies for marriage equality. Traveling between Spokane and Kennewick on Thursday afternoon, he met supporters everywhere, cheering.

"People are realizing that this is obtainable in their lifetimes," Friedes said. "I would say the mood is jubilation and recommitment."

In the battle for same-sex marriage rights, gays here are making steady gains on a path similar to the one in California that led to Thursday's decisive and long-awaited victory for gays there.

Four years after Massachusetts became the first state in the U.S. to allow gays to marry, Thursday's 4-3 ruling by the California Supreme Court pumped euphoria into a movement that desperately needed a win.

Thursday's ruling carries virtually no legal punch outside California -- gay and lesbian couples going there from Washington and other states to marry would likely have no marital rights back home. Most states don't recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere.

But with a population of 38 million, the influence of the Golden State on American culture and mores is undeniable, court watchers here said.

"In a way, you can say this is some other state choosing some other path," said Julie Shapiro, associate professor of law at Seattle University.

Still, she expects Thursday's ruling to create significant momentum in the movement nationwide. "It's a hugely important opinion. And California is not just a very large state, it's also a very influential one."

For nearly a decade, Friedes worked on equality issues in Massachusetts and saw that state become the only other where gay marriage is legal. He said the news from California had re-energized those previously resigned to the possibility that they might never get further than domestic partnerships in Washington.

Connie Watts, also of Equal Rights Washington, calls the California decision "a victory for all Americans who cherish fairness and opportunity."

California's high court did what Washington's wouldn't two years ago: Justices on the Supreme Court here rejected many of the same arguments regarding equality, letting stand a state law that limits marriage in Washington to the union of a man and woman.

In the years since, Washington's gay and lesbian couples have been gradually gaining marriage-like benefits through a domestic-partnership registry established in 2007 and expanded this year by the state Legislature.

Same-sex couples who register their unions with the state are entitled to a growing list of benefits that include property rights and child support.

Similarly, California's domestic-partnership program, the first in the U.S. when it was started in 1999, was expanded over the years to include most benefits common to marriage.

Eventually, organizers here say they'll shift their goal to pursue the title of marriage as gays in California did -- only not through the courts but by way of the Legislature.

"The main thing is that the tide may be turning," said Lisa Stone, executive director of the Northwest Women's Law Center, which represented local gay and lesbian couples in this state's gay-marriage lawsuit.

The incremental increase in benefits to domestic partners has been part of a carefully orchestrated strategy in Washington. Supporters of gay marriage believe that, bit by bit, residents will see gay couples living in legally recognized relationships -- until the final step, full-fledged marriage, will be more a formality than major hurdle.

"Our purpose in passing domestic partnership legislation is about getting to full marriage in the end," said Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, one of several openly gay members of the Legislature. "We think that by building aspects of marriage in the bills, we start to change hearts and minds of citizens."

Already, 22 percent of same-sex couples in Washington are raising children, according to demographer Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at the UCLA School of Law, who believes the California decision could have tremendous impact here.

"I think it's going to put pressure particularly on the Western states," he said.

The ruling, for instance, does not require gay couples to have California residency to be wed.

"Potentially, you could have a lot of those Washington couples coming to California to get married," Gates said. "And then there's going to be a legal question of how they're treated in their home state."

But David Skover, a constitutional law professor at Seattle University who has been in a gay relationship with his partner, Sean O'Reilly, for 17 years, takes a cautious approach -- similar to that of his home state.

"What we really are seeing," he said, "is that California has taken the bold step and we are taking the incremental path."

Full article: Washington gay-marriage advocates see tide turning, but look to Legislature | Seattle Times
Gay marriage ruling rallies state activists | Seattle Post-Intelligencer