Wash. judge OK's gay marriage

Prohibiting same-sex marriages serves no ''state interest" and violates the constitutional rights of gay couples to due process, he ruled.

The state Supreme Court must review the case before licenses can be issued, said Jennifer Pizer, lead counsel in the case for Lambda Legal Defense. ''Judge Downing saw the couples in the courtroom, and he's recognized that they are full and equal citizens of Washington," Pizer said.

Arguing for the couples, attorney Bradley Bagshaw told Downing at a hearing last month that the act violates the state constitution by depriving same-sex couples of the same rights as other residents.

Six couples filed the lawsuit in March after King County refused to grant them marriage licenses, and two other couples later joined the suit.

A second lawsuit was filed in April by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of 11 same-sex couples.

Downing concluded that barring same-sex partners from civil marriage is ''not rationally related to any legitimate or compelling state interest."

Opponents of same-sex marriage criticized the ruling.

''I'm disappointed that we even have to be deliberating a well-precedented matter that people previously defined as a marriage between a man and a woman," said state Senator Val Stevens, a Republican who intervened in the case. ''What's to say we can't call a sister-brother union marriage? Where do you draw the line?"

King County Executive Ron Sims, a defendant in the lawsuit, said the ruling was a powerful affirmation of equal rights.

''I always believed that if the court of law addressed this that the court would conclude that the prohibition against gays and lesbians from being married would be found unconstitutional," Sims said.

When first urged to issue licenses to gay couples, Sims refused, saying the licenses would have no legal meaning in a state that did not recognize them.

Washington is one of 38 states with laws defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Under a state high court Supreme Judicial Court ruling, Massachusetts has allowed gay marriage since May.