Washington State Rules Against Marriage Equality

Pam’s got the goods. It’s a huge punt (back to you, legislature!), and the decision infuriatingly cites procreation (or the lack thereof) as a reason to limit marriage equality.

Under this standard, DOMA is constitutional because the legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children's biological parents. Allowing same-sex couples to marry does not, in the legislature's view, further these purposes.

Bullshit. Less than a week after we’re granted one of the most gagginating photo ops of the Bush administration, as the president vetoed a stem cell bill while surrounded by “snowflake babies”—the result of embryo adoption—I don’t want to hear about how the well-being of children is contingent upon encouraging families in which children are reared by their biological parents. On one hand, we have the GOP suggesting that 400,000 embryos ought to be adopted to avoid their fate as research tools or medical waste, and on the other, we have the courts denying gay marriage on the premise of the superiority of biological families. Unfuckingbelievable.

As long as straight couples are allowed to be married and deliberately childless, or infertile straight people are allowed to marry, there’s no justification for denying marriage to same-sex couples on this basis. So what if allowing same-sex couples to marry doesn’t further the purposes of procreation and survival of the human race (which is fallacious anyway, considering that gay people can procreate, if nontraditionally, and adopt)? Neither does my marriage. Not every straight person with the capacity to procreate wants to do so, and many of them still get married—because they don’t define marriage as the conduit to procreation. Each of us should have the right to define our own marriage. For some people, it may be creating a stable structure into which to bring children; for others, it may simply be about signaling a long-term commitment with a single beloved companion; for others, it may be about convenience; for others, it may be about money. People get married for all sorts of reasons, some more noble than others, and it’s not up to the courts or the government to create the definition of their marriages for them. That’s sort of what “freedom” is all about.