OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington’s high court was the third court in July to block efforts by homosexual activists to force recognition of “same-sex marriage.” In a 5–4 ruling July 26, the court upheld the state’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), overturning two lower court rulings that declared the legislation unconstitutional.
Consideration of the case began when 19 homosexual couples filed two cases to have the state’s DOMA overturned. Lower court rulings sided with the plaintiffs, but the state’s Supreme Court ruling explicitly states that the court has not been given the role of deciding who may be married in the state. That role belongs to the state’s legislators, the ruling stated.
Legislators in the state’s government, the court’s majority opinion said, are “entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to the survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by children’s biological parents. Allowing same-sex couples to marry does not, in the Legislature’s view, further these purposes.”
The high court in New York on July 6 upheld that state’s marriage laws in a 4–2 ruling, citing reasons similar to those in the Washington case. The Supreme Court of Georgia, also on July 6, reinstated a ban on “same-sex marriage” that a lower court had thrown out.
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