Talk:Andersen v. King County

The official ruling was not a majority ruling
As far as deciding which position "won", it was five to four to retain the state's Defense of Marriage Act. But none of the opinions expressing that position received the endorsement of a majority of judges. The official opinion had the endorsement of only three judges: Barbara Madison, who wrote it, Gerry Alexander and Charles Johnson. The two other judges who made the majority, James Johnson and Richard Sanders, endorsed a different opinion which cited different rationales for the ruling. The judges on the other side of the decision -- Mary Fairhurst, Tom Chambers, Susan Owens and Bobbe J Bridge -- all endorsed a single dissent.

This makes a fine but vitally important distinction of judicial precedent: The official opinion of the Court is not a majority opinion, and therefore is substantially weaker and easier for latter courts to overturn. The main dissenting opinion received more endorsements than did the official ruling, making it substantially stronger with regards to how future Courts might rule on equal marriage. I believe that distinction should be made in the main article.

TechBear 22:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I was just going over the rulings myself--a lot of text to read!  What you have written in the first paragraph sounds very clear.  I'd say go ahead and add it.  I expanded this article this morning/afternoon before I went to class, so it was very abrupt and skipped a lot of details.  The second paragraph sounds like good reasoning, but is there some source we could cite for that?  I'm not a legal scholar, so I don't know much about legal precedent and what traditionally is viewed as a strong or weak opinion.  I'd be willing to help where I can, though! --Rkitko 22:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * My only cite is one of the lawyers I work with. I will do some research and see what I can find; perhaps a cross reference to the Wiki article for "judicial precedent" or some such would be sufficient. Tomorrow, when I have a chance, I will edit the "majority opinion" stuff to read "official opinion", and tuck in the distinction between that and "majority." The implications of the distinction can be added when cites are available. -- TechBear 04:42, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds excellent. Once I get done reading through the opinions (official and main dissent) I might go ahead and add more concise information on their main arguments.  I'll also try to gopher out some news articles on the subject.  Do you think there should be a small section on "reaction" to the decision?  Specifically, I'm thinking of the news that state Rep. Ed Murray plans to propose legislation that would allow same-sex marriage (however futile the endeavor at this point in time) and Christine Gregoire's press statement in which she urges the legislature to create a "legal bond" for same-sex couples (without saying "marriage" or "civil union" specifically).  Oh, and not to appear as if one side is being favored, I would also dig up some reactions by individuals praising the decision, namely state Rep. Dan Swecker. --Rkitko 05:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The original Madsen quote in the article was very misleading because it implied that she ruled because she believed that banning same-sex marriage aided procreation, but they cut out the first part of the quote which read "Under this standard, DOMA is constitutional because the legislature was entitled to believe that..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.134.199 (talk) 07:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

About the PDF links to www.courts.wa.gov
The state court website only provides PDFs of rulings for a short time, typically one to two months. If possible, we should try to get these documents mirrored to a more permanent site.

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