WA: LGBT Rights Climate Improves

While I was out of town last week there were some exciting LGBT rights developments in Washington state. The heterosexist supremacists failed to qualify a ballot measure which would have repealed Washington's LGBT civil rights law which was enacted earlier this year, after nearly 30 years. Thus the law went into effect on Wednesday June 7. Yay!

The failure to get enough signatures to even qualify an anti-gay rights measure has heartened civil rights activists in the state because they have been anxiously waiting for a final ruling on a marriage equality case since March 2005 from the Washington State Supreme Court. This should be a clear signal to the Court that the climate for LGBT equality is improving in the state and that a ruling declaring that marriage for same-sex couples can not be prohibited by the state without offending the state (and federal) constitution would not be out of step with the public policy of the polity.