A Rainbow cracks in Olympia

By a 5 to 4 margin, the Washington State Supreme Court upholds the 1998 'Defence' of Marriage Act (DOMA).

This verdict, and the local media coverage surrounding it, is a striking illustration of the cultural divide that still exists between Canada and the United States, even relatively progressive states like Washington. It appears that my regular visits to Seattle, poking through Left Bank Books and leafing through The Stranger mislead me to believe that the Evergreen State was a progressive oasis in an otherwise reactionary American desert.

For all the huffing and puffing about same-sex marriage in Canada, the issue was never more than a means for Stephen Harper and Co. to assure Prairie diehards that the new Conservatives hadn't lost their Reform Party roots. Everyday Canadians treated it as a non-issue. By contrast, once the State Supreme Court announced they were about to rule, Seattle TV stations acted like this wedge issue was about to wedge open the gates of heaven (or hell) and exhorted viewers that the first/best place to experience Wednesday's rapture was KIRO, KOMO, KING, or Q13.

The ruling itself screams 'Appeal', as it flies in the face of the privileges and immunities clause of Washington's state constitution. DOMA denies a benefit (marriage) to a specific group (gays & lesbians), but Justice Barbara Madsen, one of the majority, believes that the plaintiffs could not prove that gays are members of a "suspect class", ie. an identifiable group entitled to protection against discrimination. In a bigoted nutshell, not only are gays and lesbians prevented from marrying in Washington State, they don't really exist there either.