I ran into Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat and Seattle PI columnist Susan Paynter at KUOW this morning. (I was filling my bike bag with plaques and SPJ awards when they came into the waiting room, but they promised not to rat me out.) Seeing Westneat and Paynter reminded me of a recent column by each—Westneat on the gay marriage decision, Paynter on pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for the morning after pill—that I dug, meant to link to here on Slog, but neglected to. Better late than never.

Here’s Westneat on gay marriage:

It’s the state’s business to further procreation because it’s “essential to survival of the human race.” So it’s OK to bar homosexuals from marriage because they can’t have kids.

First off, we humans breed just fine without government oversight, thanks very much.

But the notion that marriage and procreation are necessarily linked is truly archaic. No doubt it comes as news to lesbian mothers who have given birth. And it will surely be a shock to all you marrieds who are infertile or who — gasp! — choose not to have kids…. But worse than the [court’s] reasoning is the potential fallout. It practically urges the state to ban adoption by any gay or lesbian parent.

Some states have done this. Maybe ours is next. Using this court’s reasoning, the state could take away the kids of all lesbian moms and gay dads, including, I guess, my daughter’s classmate, whose two moms are on the school PTA.

Sound far-fetched? One of the justices, Jim Johnson, wrote that the “binary biological nature of marriage” gives it an “exclusive link” with “responsible child rearing.” If a kid didn’t spring from your loins, you have no business raising it.

As long as we’re giving biological litmus tests, why stop with gays? Ban all adoptions. Ban step-parenting. Ban any family that isn’t tidily nuclear.

Of course none of that will happen. We’re only putting gays and lesbians in this box. Not because of this blarney about procreation and parenting. We’re doing it because they’re different. And because we’re the majority, so we can.

That’s classic discrimination. The kind that usually can be fixed only by the courts.

One of the justices said someday we’ll look back at this period with regret and shame. There’s no reason to wait.

Here’s Paynter on fundie pharmacists:

Even if we were only talking about the morning-after pill, there would be plenty to protest…. But, before people revel too much in this decision they ought to consider that it could cover a multitude of medications they, themselves, might want. What about being refused AZT because a druggist assumes the HIV-positive patient is gay and disapproves of his or her “lifestyle?” (To me that always sounded like disliking someone’s taste in patio furniture rather than one’s inherent sexual orientation.)

What if it’s a pharmacist who may or may not be Tom Cruising spiritual waters aboard the SS Scientology? Say he’s opposed to filling prescriptions for antidepressants? Couldn’t happen? It recently did right here in this state.

And, at a pharmacy in Seattle, a woman’s prescription for a cervix-dilating medication was refused by a pharmacist who suspected she was on her way to have an abortion. Not that it ought to matter, but the woman’s physician prescribed the drug because she was about to have surgery for uterine fibroids….

Maybe it’s true that “refusnik” druggists are rare. After all, we have Rod Shafer of the State Pharmacy Association to assure us with an Alfred E. Neuman smile that “there is no crisis.” But, when it’s you standing at the counter with prescription in hand and time ticking away, having to shop for a druggist who’s willing to do his job is more than a mere inconvenience. It’s an outrage.