As David foreshadowed a few days ago, we made the pages of the Seattle PI today. Susan Paynter is wonderful. We got connected with her earlier this week through our friends at the Pride Foundation and talked to her on Tuesday, before we knew how the State Supreme Court case would turn out. Oh well…
For posterity’s sake, my family “turned on a dime” the minute I came out–they didn’t wait for the wedding. But I know it did make a big difference to them.
As disappointed as I am about the court’s decision, I do believe that the best long-term approach is to go through the legislative process. Had we won, we would have spent the next five years in a defensive position trying to keep the Rethuglicans in Olympia and Tim Eyman from defeating us again–not to mention reinvigorating backers of efforts to write a marriage ban into the US Constitution. Much better, in my view, to set to work building support for a future legislative shift.
Demographics are on our side–people under 30 support our right to marry. As MLK said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Our time will come. And on that day when David and I can make our marriage official in Washington, we’ll throw one hell of a party!
Great article, Jay & David. Susan couldn’t have chosen a better couple to write about. And I agree, the ruling was 5-to-4, with dissents that reflected just how vapid and meaningless the majority decision is. Like Dan Savage recently said in The Stranger, if this pro-creation argument is all they have now, we’re basically there. Especially given the recent scientific findings that children aren’t any better off in an opposite-sex parent home than a same-sex parent home. The ruling is disappointing in that I want our country, and this state, to be “there” now, but I’m also encouraged to keep believing the majority of this country is starting to see the err of its ways — and willing, eager even, to act on it.