July 26, 2006
Transcript from Executive Sims news conference regarding Defense of Marriage decision
Ron Sims
I am proud to have been the defendant in this case. I was hoping and praying that I would lose so that in this state these plaintiffs, these extraordinary people who love each other and who wish to stand before this society as equals that that their right to be loving couples would have been achieved.
So I am disappointed in the decision that was rendered this morning by the State Supreme Court. But over my life I grew up in a period of Plessy v. Ferguson and another Supreme Court, after looking at the social consequences, made a decision in Brown v. the Board of Education that separate but equal was a confounded unconstitutional provision and therefore changed how we look at the law and fully emancipated my parents and myself as African Americans.
I believe within my lifetime that we will see legislative and political action and other jurist who will look at this decision and believe it as Plessy v Ferguson and move for the full emancipation of the rights of gays and lesbians to be loving couples with marital rights. I wish that that had been today. I earnestly and with so much energy wish for another result but this plaintiff class stood forward and said that they wanted the right to be married and for that I must applaud them for that courage and standing on principles and asking that this state and country be greater and better.
But within their lifetime and mine the debate that we have today will be silenced as society and the judicial and legislative processes fully embrace the fact that loving people, whether they’re heterosexuals or whether they are gays and lesbians, have the right to be married.
So our task is not done. I, like others, will continue to press and hope for legislative action to be able to push for political action because I know that’s where we need to be as a state and as a country. Other countries have moved forward with no consequence and said, “You know its time to move forward. It is time to rethink who we are and what kind of societies we are.” And we need to do that here as well. We need to be a society that respects everyone, embraces everyone and sees everyone as integral, and allows everybody the same footing in law the same stand before buildings like this King County Administration building where I once opened the doors and said, “You know, here is a place where we will find justice. Where we one day will open these doors and people will find justice- the right to be married. But we must be diligent in persevering.
I think the decision I made to invite myself to be sued was the appropriate one. I am a person that believes in the law. I am a person that believes that we are a civil society made better by the law. And even when the law has not agreed with me, I still uphold it and believe in it. And I think that the institution of laws in this society is very important for all of us to follow. But I grew up in a neighborhood where Japanese were interned during WWII because the Supreme Court said it was constitutional only to see that revisited by a Supreme Court that set that aside and required a new standard.
This decision harkens and reminds me of Plessy vs. Ferguson there was a new world opened up for me and my children by Brown vs. Board of Education. This decision will not stand the test of time. Justice won’t allow it to stand the test of time. It is now my pleasure to introduce the lead attorney Lisa Stone from the Northwest Women’s Law Center who did so much and with so much courage.
Lisa M. Stone
Thank you Ron. The Northwest Women’s Law Center and Lambda Legal are proud and privileged to have been able to sue you. And if you like, we’ll do it again.
This is a very sad day, but it is not the last day. It is just a day. In every struggle for equality and justice the road is long, it is often perilous, and sometimes the end seems frighteningly distant.
The Northwest Women’s Law Center, our clients, and our amazing colleagues at ACLU and Lambda Legal brought this case because we believe in the rule of law. We believe the legal system exists to protect individuals, to protect the powerless, to protect the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, and those who are discriminated against. That is the promise of our constitution both state and federal. And today in Washington State, that promise was broken.
Because we do respect the rule of law, we acknowledge that for today, for now, the courthouse avenue to justice is foreclosed. But that doesn’t mean that every end and every avenue is closed, and we will not give up. All it means is that we’re taking a deep breath, we’re putting our shoulders back and we are settling into our role as advocates, as attorneys, as activists, and as citizens of our state to ask the Legislature and the fair-minded people of Washington to help us achieve marriage equality. We will pursue whatever avenue we have to to get that blessed day as Ron says when the 38 couples who so bravely stepped forward and every lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender couple in the state can have a wedding day when bells ring and their families celebrate and we do have equality in the state of Washington.
Ron’s right, you can delay justice and sometimes you can delay it for an interminably long time but you cannot deny it and I hope we’re back here in a very short time celebrating marriages, weddings, and equality. I would like to introduce you to one of the fabulous lawyers on this case representing the ACLU of Washington which has been committed to LGBT rights for its entire existence, Roger Leishman.
Roger Leishman
Thank you, Lisa. The American Civil Liberties of Washington in coordination with our friends at Lambda Legal and Northwest Women’s’ Law Center didn’t get a chance to sue Ron, instead we sued the state on behalf of 11 couples from all over the state presenting the question, as these cases do, of what is fair, what is right, how should our gay and lesbian citizens in Washington be treated equally. Marriage is a civil right. Lesbian and gay equality is fundamental to a society where all citizens are treated equally. We are disappointed by the court’s decision today. We are encouraged that at least seven members of our Washington Supreme Court recognize that lesbian and gay families couples and their children suffer serious discrimination and serious disadvantages because they do not today have the opportunity to be married. Unfortunately, the court did not choose at this point to use its role to step in and correct that problem.
Hopefully moving forward we will find an opportunity in this and other venues to seek marriage and gain equality. Today as Lisa says is not the last day. It is just a Wednesday. Tomorrow will be Thursday and we will move forward. I do want to say one thing about the mountain of opinions. There are over 100 pages of them. One sentence for me leaps out. It is something that Justice Bobbe Bridge said in her dissenting opinion. She said that the defense of marriage act doesn’t protect children, it harms children.
We at the ACLU, at the Law Center, at Lambda Legal, as a community, the lesbian and gay community and allies need to move forward to do whatever it takes to protect our children, to protect all children, to protect all families. Whether it is through the law, the court, the legislature, we will be there and we invite all fair-minded Washingtonians to join us in this effort to make sure that every child is protected.
I would now like to invite one of those parents who was in our case and one of the members of on of those couples Brenda Bauer. She and her partner Celia are the main plaintiffs in our case and they are a sterling representative of the kinds of families that are real families that the law will someday recognize. Thank you
Brenda Bauer
This is a really sad day for our family. It was actually pretty inconceivable to me that this would be the decision and so I hadn’t really thought much about what I would say. And even sadder, I filled out a marriage application to give to Ron.
The courts have said that our family shouldn’t be protected under our laws and they have asked us to go seek a vote of the majority to protect the minority. They have said that procreation, they support child rearing yet they don’t support our children or our family.
I believe that marriage is a basic right, and this ruling denies that we are capable of love and denies that we are capable of commitment. You get to fill out this one page form and it basically has your name and address on it and you give 60 dollars to your county administrator. You get access to thousands of rights that protect families. Today they have said we can’t have that.
We are two people who made a promise to each other about 18 years ago, and we have kept that promise, we have kept all of our promises. Through two kids, through carpools, chasing escaped hamsters at night, volunteering in our schools, taking our kids to choir, Quaker meetings, play dates, and trying to find just a little bit of time for two adults to have conversation. All of this while working in public service for more that 25 years each. We made this promise to one another and for our children because families are the backbone of communities and they take care of our community members. Our laws say that if you make this promise, we will honor it and hold you responsible-unless you’re gay or lesbian.
Other couples can be with each other in the hospital, they can make important decisions with and for each other, they can care for each other through benefits and sharing of resources, and the laws support them to raise their children. Through this government license you can declare that you are responsible for the ones you love and in return receive legal recognition of that family in times of need. We have made this promise and waited for the law to keep its promise to treat our family fairly and equally under the law. Today our promise of 18 years was denied. Today, caring and love for family lost and nobody won. Hopefully that will change. Thank you. I would like to introduce Jaime Peterson who is one of the attorneys for the executive.
Jamie Peterson
I am Jamie Peterson from Lambda Legal. We passed an important milestone in our struggle for equality today. It was one we hoped we wouldn’t see. But it is just a milepost on a long road toward a day when every family in our society, when all of the children in our society and in our state enjoy the protections that come with marriage.
But what we found on the other side of the milepost is that today like yesterday and the day before those families don’t have that protection. They lack access to health insurance and health care. They lack access to inheritance rights when one of the partners dies such as in Lambda’s case in New Jersey. They lack access to medical decision making powers, to pension benefits and 423 other rights, benefits, and obligations that heterosexual couples take for granted when they seek and obtain a marriage license here in this building.
The good news as Roger said is that seven of the nine justices on our state supreme court recognized this injustice. They see that our families lack that basic protection, and I think it fair to say that they understand that the law we have is not a good law. But we respect their right to say what the law is and therefore we are resolved to change the law to make sure that the law protects every one of our families, every family and every child in this state.
And so as we have done in other forums we move to the legislative process and we will tell our stories to people who will listen and we have faith that at the end of that process we will gain that protection for our families. We look at what has happened in New Jersey, in California, in Connecticut, in Massachusetts and we know that as people become familiar with the problems that we face, and as people step up in leadership positions to take on that struggle, to make sure that everyone has access to those protections, we will prevail.
And so I invite, I encourage, I urge all of you to become a part of that struggle and help make sure that all of my friends who are gathered around me here today enjoy protection for their families. And now it is my pleasure to introduce, Beth Reese, one of our plaintiffs a member of a four-generation family that today lacks the protection of marriage.
Beth Reese
Barbara and I are heartbroken today. We are stunned that the justices did not recognize the legitimacy of our family. After 29 years of sharing childcare and the care of our aging parents, after almost three decades of taking care of one another in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, we so deserve to become one another’s legal next of kin. We deserve equal treatment from our government.
The court has ruled that we aren’t being discriminated against because we could choose to break up our home and each marry someone of a different gender. Thus marriage isn’t denied to us because of our sexes. In other words, you can marry the person you love, and I can marry the person you love. How nonsensical and unfair is that? Barbara is my best friend, my most trusted confidante, my shelter in a stormy world. She knows all my flaws and blemishes and loves me anyways. The court offers us nothing when it offers us the right to leave one another and marry someone we don’t love. We are reeling today.
Courts have said you can get married if you have been married six times before. Courts have said you can get married if you owe you children entire childhoods worth of child support. Courts have said you can get married if you are in prison for murder. But this court says I can’t marry the woman I have loved nearly my entire adult life, whose children I nursed when they were sick and cheered for at school concerts. This court says that I don’t have a fundamental right to protect her in our old age. We are reeling today.
That said, I think we speak for all eight couples in our suit and for the larger gay and lesbian allied community in wanting to thank our attorneys from the Northwest Women’s Law Center and Lambda Legal and the attorneys in the other suit from ACLU for the countless hours they have invested this year and last and the passion and skill and love that went into fighting for our right to full citizenship of the state of WA.
We aren’t going away. Washington has the fifth highest percentage of same sex households in the country. We pay taxes, we vote, we volunteer. Today our nation stumbled in its lurching journey towards liberty and justice for all. But today is not an end. It is one more day in the struggle for the hearts of all Washingtonians, all Americans, our legislators, our neighbors.
There will come a day in our lifetimes when our government treats us equally with every other family. Until that day, we will keep on loving one another and working to make our homes sanctuaries from discrimination.
Ron Sims
It is now my pleasure to introduce the person who was the principal author of the state statute to prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians. I would like to introduce Ed Murray
Ed Murray
Thank you. First I want to thank the lawyers who worked on this case and most importantly I want to thank the families who were willing to sue and take this case all the way to the Supreme Court. The least we can do right now is to give these families a special recognition. Thank you so much
Our hearts are hurting today. Like the families here, my partner Michael who’s standing over there, we had hoped after 15 years that we were going to get married next week. We were disappointed. But now is not the time for the gay and lesbian community to be disappointed. Now is the time to recommit ourselves to making marriage equality a reality. I will, if I have the opportunity in January, introduce a bill for marriage equality. It’s right here. I want to give it to Lisa Stone.
I know that that bill will not pass the first session we introduce it and it most likely will not pass during the first few sessions we introduce it but we have to begin the discussion with our legislators and we have to begin the discussion with the citizens of this state to make marriage equality for gay and lesbian people a reality.
Finally I’ve heard from many of you today who have asked me in the media “Isn’t this a bad issue for democrats in an election year?” Let me tell you, in 1996, in 1997, in 1998 when the republicans controlled the legislature, every year they introduced DOMA, every year they made us vote against it. Not a single democrat has ever lost an election who voted against DOMA. But I can tell you 12 right wing republicans including the prime sponsor of this regrettable bill who all lost an election. We are not afraid of this issue. This is not an issue that’s going to determine who wins and who loses an election.
Today we hurt, and today we mourn, and tomorrow we go back to work. Thank you.
Ron Sims
We also have another person here who has been very active on the issue Representative Joe McDermott.
Joe McDermott
Thank you Ron. I am here today first of all to salute the 19 couples- many of them are behind me at this podium- for opening up their lives, opening up their stories sharing them with the court, sharing them with the people of the state of Washington. Both the couples their children and their families, and I too applaud you.
My next step as a legislator is to go to Olympia in January and lead the fight in the house, lead every opportunity I have to achieve marriage equality, the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of marriage for every citizen of the state of Washington, regardless of who they choose to marry. I will work with my colleagues, democrats and republicans, from Seattle, from Eastern Washington, from across the state to do all I can working with plaintiff couples-the people who brought this case so far thus far-to make sure that we achieve equality for all WA citizens. Thank you
Ron Sims
Again I want to applaud the plaintiffs as well. When I was a kid- I always talk about that period because it was so cultivating, so nurturing. There were two women in the church I went to, Mrs. Mapps and Mrs. Curdly and whenever there was a demonstration in our area, we would come back to church on Sunday and Rev. Reed would preach about hopes and dreams and Mrs. Mapps and Mrs. Curdly would sing an old spiritual in acapella, and I remember the lyrics. The lyrics went like this.
I am no ways tired.
We have come too far from where we started from.
Nobody told me that the road would be easy, but I don’t believe he brought us this far to leave me.
So I can say that the road has been difficult but we are not tired. We are “no ways” tired. And when Dr. King was giving his speech, he kept saying, “How long,” and a person behind him kept saying, “Not long.” So I am going to tell you that this issue isn’t an issue of how long because its going to not be long before gays and lesbians will be able to stand and sign that certificate and say I do and enjoy marriage. Justice will be rendered. No ways tired and it won’t be long
Lisa Stone
Ron, I’m disappointed you didn’t sing it. Rep. Murray, thank you for this, we will be talking.
Thank you for all coming today. For members of media who would like to speak to plaintiffs and attorneys, please see Dan Miller in the back or Doug Hoenig in the ACLU cap and they would be happy to arrange that.
Thanks for coming and hope to see you again on the victory day.