Washington state high court to rule on gay marriage
Posted on: Tuesday, 25 July 2006, 19:27 CDT
SEATTLE (Reuters) - The Washington Supreme Court said it expects to hand down a decision on Wednesday in a case challenging the state's gay marriage ban.
Washington could become the second state after Massachusetts to legalize gay weddings if the state's high court supports two appealed lower court rulings in favor of same-sex marriage.
The justices posted a short release on the court's Web site on Tuesday, but the notice gave no indication of the decision's outcome.
The plaintiffs in the case, 19 gay and lesbian couples, challenged the constitutionality of Washington state's Defense of Marriage Act, a law passed by the state legislature in 1998 restricting marriage to one man and one woman.
The gay marriage case before the Washington state Supreme Court consolidates rulings by judges in King and Thurston counties in two separate cases overturning that act.
The court could rule in a number of ways.
It could uphold the marriage act, or rule against the act and give gays and lesbians the right to marry, or rule against the act but say there is no right to same-sex marriage under the state's constitution. It could also turn the decision over to the Washington state legislature.
The U.S. Supreme Court has not taken a case on gay marriage, leaving states to decide the issue.
In 2003, Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, leading to America's first same-sex marriages the following year.
Connecticut and Vermont allow same-sex civil unions, while California, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. offer gay and lesbian couples some legal rights as partners. But these steps have provoked a backlash from voters elsewhere in the nation.
Marriage is defined as the union of one man and one woman in at least 41 states and voters in at least 18 have overwhelmingly approved "defense of marriage" amendments in their state constitutions. Several more states will vote on the issue in November.
Source: REUTERS
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