Hey a victory's a victory, right? Time to celebrate. Woo hoo!

I'm sure the closeted right-wing nutcases are just disappointed that the court didn't make same-sex marriage mandatory. They can (and will) suck it.

Finally, with regard to the ability to obtain redress through the legislative process (the political powerless prong), several state statutes and municipal codes provide protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation and also provide economic benefit for same sex couples. 7 Recently, the legislature amended the Washington State Law Against Discrimination to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Engrossed Substitute H.B. 2661, 59th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Wash. 2006). In addition, the Intervenors point to evidence that a number of openly gay candidates were elected to national, state, and local offices in 2004. The enactment of provisions providing increased protections to gay and lesbian individuals in Washington shows that as a class gay and lesbian persons are not powerless but, instead, exercise increasing political power. Indeed, the recent passage of the amendments to chapter 49.60 RCW is particularly significant given that, as the plaintiffs point out, the legislature had previously declined on numerous occasions to add sexual orientation to the laws against discrimination. We conclude that plaintiffs have not established that they satisfy the third prong of the suspect classification test.

It's perfectly possible that if WA did have a nearly-identical-to-marriage domestic partnership registry at the time of Andersen, that our court would have found that that was even further proof that gays and lesbians could fight discrimination at the legislative level and didn't need the Court to help out.

Perverse, but true.

@5: No, seriously, this is a bigger victory than anything Dan's talking about, in my opinion. I'm afraid CA doesn't have quite as robust an analysis in favor of strict scrutiny as they could have done, but it's still fantastic.

Whoops, I was actually referring to the wingers' cuckoo, hysterical,irrational belief that this ruling seemingly somehow forces them to enter into a same sex marriage.

You're absolutely right. However the chips fall, this decision is fantastic and I'm glad we finally got a ruling that respects equality.

You are right - this is a much bigger deal than getting marriage rights. This means any regulation that considers sexual orientation in unconstitutional unless it is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest. This would include any regulation of housing, employment, benefits, etc. However, this can cut both ways because courts usually apply strict scrutiny symmetrically to both helpful and hurtful regulations. SCOTUS found some affirmative action programs unconstitutional because they consider race, and race is also a suspect classification.

Marry me?

Marry me?