An Apology to All the Gay a2kers

..."I believe there's over 400 different state rights and over 1,100 federal rights that we're denied by the fact that we can't be married," said Seattle resident Johanna Bender.

Meanwhile heated arguments broke out between demonstrators for traditional marriage and gay marriage outside the Temple of Justice in Olympia.

Most of the traditional marriage demonstrators attended a "mayday for marriage" rally held by the Bothell-based Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government.

Pastor Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond said the homosexual agenda is to have special rights. He said a traditional marriage is best for families.

Supporters of gay marriage carried signs that said "The Right to Love is an Equal Right."

Last year, judges in King County and Thurston County overturned the state's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which limits marriage to a union between a man and a woman, and expressly forbids same-sex marriage. Both judges cited the state constitution's "privileges and immunities" section, and it features prominently in briefs filed with the Supreme Court.

"The privilege of civil marriage and the various privileges legally conferred by that status are not being made equally available to all citizens," King County Superior Court Judge William Downing said last August as he ruled in favor of same-sex marriage rights.

Justices are not expected to make a ruling until later this summer or even fall.

California Law Banning Gay Marriages Is Struck Down (Update1)
March 14 (Bloomberg) -- A California judge struck down the state's laws banning gay weddings, saying that measures defining marriage as between a man and a woman are unconstitutional.

Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer's ruling, pending appeals, would make California the second state in the U.S. to legalize gay marriages after Massachusetts. San Francisco, which conducted about 4,000 same-sex weddings last year, claimed the laws violated the rights of gays and lesbians.

``Same-sex marriage cannot be prohibited solely because California has always done so before,'' Kramer said in a 27-page tentative ruling released today in San Francisco.