In gay marriage battle, different visions of life after R-74

MyNorthwest’s Election Night: Listen, watch, and get live results

Molly Ingraham and Genevieve Vose have envisioned what it might be like to live in a state where same-sex couples have the right to marry.

They’ve imagined waking up in their Rainer Beach home Wednesday morning to news that Washington voters believe they have as much of a right to wed as anyone else.

“Nothing changes, yet everything changes,” said Ingraham, 37, who works for The Nature Conservancy of Washington.

“Being able to get married is not going to make us love each other more. Being able to get married is not going to make us better parents,” she said. “But at the same time […] you can envision things: how your children will be raised and what it will mean for them.”

Ingraham met Vose, a 34-year-old attorney at the Seattle-based law firm Susman Godfree, online.

Vose admits she was “just straight up looking for girls,”
when she stumbled upon a personal ad that caught her eye.

“She just came across like she was very intelligent and creative,” she said of Ingraham.

The two began to date, and nearly six years later find themselves at the center of perhaps the most controversial and personal ballot measure of this election: Referendum 74.

After the state Legislature passed a marriage equality bill in February, opponents of gay marriage collected more than 230,000 signatures to put the issue on the Nov. 6 ballot.

A “Yes” vote on R-74 would allow same-sex couples the right to wed. A “No” vote on R-74 would keep marriage between one man and one woman.

The ballot measure is summarized as follows:

“This bill allows same-sex couples to marry, applies marriage laws without regard to gender, and specifies that laws using gender-specific terms like husband and wife include same-sex spouses. After 2014, existing domestic partnerships are converted to marriages, except for seniors. It preserves the right of clergy or religious organizations to refuse to perform or recognize any marriage or accommodate wedding ceremonies. The bill does not affect licensing of religious organizations providing adoption, foster-care, or child-placement.”

Currently, the state has an “everything but marriage,” or domestic partnership law.

Should R-74 pass, Washington would become the seventh state to legalize marriage for same-sex couples. But of the 32 times gay marriage has appeared on ballots across the country, it has never survived a vote of the people.

“In the handful of states where there is gay marriage, it has been imposed by activist judges or career politicians.

But in every state where the people have the opportunity to vote, they have consistently voted to reject redefining marriage,” said Chip White, communications director for Preserve Marriage Washington, which is against same-sex marriage.

The group has amped up television ads in recent weeks and claims to have momentum heading into the election. White points to an Oct. 24 Elway Poll that, taking into consideration the margin of error, put them in a statistical tie with their opponents.

“The other side is asking for the ‘approve vote,’ so they bear the burden of imposing a new, a radically different definition of marriage on society,” he said. “One that Americans just are not ready to accept.”

DiAnna Brannan, a married mother of two, has traveled the state on behalf of Preserve Marriage Washington.

“Homosexuals have a right to love however they chose, but they don’t have a right to redefine marriage for all of society and for future generations,” she said. “I think a lot of people realize that this is really a societal experiment. We’ve yet to see what the long term consequences will be.”

Her husband of 28 years, Scott Brannon, does not believe marriage equality is in the best interest of children.

“Anytime you take away genders, there is no more mother and father, so what am I? Now it is ‘Parent 1’ and ‘Parent 2,'” he said. “This is a redefinition of marriage, and it is a redefinition for all of us.”

Yet, the “No” campaign has raised just $2.7 million compared to the $12.2 million brought in by their opponents, Washington United for Marriage, according to filings with the state Public Disclosure Commission.

The “Yes” campaign was bolstered in recent weeks by support from President Barack Obama and actor Brad Pitt, who contributed $100,000 to gay marriage efforts in Washington, Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota. Top contributors also include New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos, Bill and Melinda Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Perhaps none have more invested in the outcome of Tuesday’s election than Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, who has spent the past two decades fighting for gay rights.

On Feb. 1, 2012, Murray stood next to his longtime partner, Michael Shioski, during a press conference at the state capitol in Olympia. Murray’s colleagues in the Senate were hours from a historic vote on marriage equality and the bill had enough support to pass.

“Don’t ask me how I feel,” Murray said jokingly to reporters.

The vote represented seventeen years of work in the state Legislature.

“This issue was closest to my heart, and to have watched that law pass was incredible,” Murray told KIRO Radio in an interview at his Capitol Hill home last week.

“I don’t think I will ever experience another night like that in my career. It was a very important night for this state, regardless of what happens. Because I think it at least showed what we were capable of at our best.”

But in the nine months that followed, Murray said he has seen the process at its worst, too. Opponents of gay marriage launched ads that he called both “disingenuous” and filled with “stereotypes” about same-sex couples.

Murray said he regrets that the issue was left up to voters.

“I don’t believe the rights of any minority group should be decide by a vote of the majority,” he said.

Regardless of how it ended up on the ballot, Murray knows same-sex couples across the state could awake Wednesday morning to one of two realities: a world where they are treated equal under the law and a world where they are not.

“I think children of gay and lesbian couples, children of gay dads and lesbian moms, will wake up that next day knowing that this state sees their families just as equal as anybody else’s family,” Murray said. “I think gay and lesbian youth across this state will wake up and realize that they can have a full life; that they can grow up and marry the person they love.”

Should R-74 pass, Murray and his partner plan to marry. He also plans to make good on a promise he made to his colleagues – Democrat and Republican – that they will be invited to join in the celebration.