The landmark trial currently before the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has huge potential. The constitutional challenge to California’s anti-gay marriage statute passed by referendum in 2008 (a.k.a “Proposition 8″) started this past Monday, and is easily the most anticipated court challenge in the past few years. Everything is on the table and being discussed, from gay marriage to adoption, civil rights to biological science, Loving v. Virginia to Jones v. Hallahan. Many gay rights groups believe the trial is likely to have a positive impact on precedence for gay marriage laws; not just in California, but for other states as well.

The religious right’s strategy in these hearings? Go big or go home. The defendants have threatened to appeal to the United States Supreme Court if the trial isn’t decided in their favor. But is such a strategy really prudent for them?

One of the crowning achievements of our democracy is our system of justice. The United States Supreme Court is at the end of the road for any legal proceeding possible. It hears cases that can (and sometimes do) change the very framework that our nation is built on. Any decision by the court is binding and sets legal precedent that influences the direction of policy and legal decisions for years. The Supreme Court is the head of the household, if you will, and the underlings are the lower appellate courts that constitutional challenges and important appeals go to first. If the losing party appeals, they then move up the chain of courts until they finally get the case in front of the Supreme Court.

Right now, the Prop 8 constitutional challenge is currently in front of one of those subordinate appellate courts – the District Court for the Northern District of California. According to press reports and liveblogs inside the trial, it seems to be quite an interesting ride so far. Everything is on the table with Judge Vaughn Walker, and the plaintiffs are making a tremendous case. The defendants are, well, on the defensive, with news breaking recently of issues inside the defense team and members trying desperately to distance themselves from the trial. Not the best outlook for the State of California’s last hope at keeping traditional ‘opposite’ marriage. (Gasp!) A press release from the National Organization for Marriage [link is NSFYS: not safe for your sanity!] details their strategy if their case doesn’t go as hoped: “We’re in for a real fight to save traditional marriage. The trial court proceedings are expected to last for weeks. The case will then be appealed and, ultimately, will end up before the United States Supreme Court.” I find this to be an interesting strategy. Push the case to the highest court in the land – y’know, the court that has the potential to strike down laws across the country – and hope for a victory?

Let’s look at the numbers first. Nearly every national poll on gay marriage support is inconclusive – it’s up one year and down the next, and many polls have different numbers for the same topics. But let’s look at the OTHER numbers, the ones that can actually help us project the likelihood of gay marriage existing in most states within, say, my parents’ lifetimes. Firstly, gay marriage is vastly more popular with young people than it is amongst people of older generations. Gallup says that among people aged 65 and older, 32% are for gay marriage, with 66% against. Moving through the generations, there is a visible progression. People of 50-64 years are 37% for gay marriage, and 30-to-49-year-olds are 40% in favor. But in the country’s youngest age bracket of 18-29 years of age (i.e. the one that will be calling the shots in about 10-15 years), 59% are for, and 37% against (margin of sampling error +/- 3%). The Pew Forum has different numbers (a bit lower in favor for each age bracket) but that same progression of strong support in the younger age bracket is still evident. So it’s clear that the youth and Generation X are much more in favor of gay marriage then their older counterparts. And we all know what happens with new generations – they move in to replace the older ones. That will, without a doubt, make these polls show more support for gay marriage nationally over the next few years. As FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver says:

Civil unions have already achieved the support of an outright majority of Americans, and as those older voters are replaced by younger ones, the smart money is that gay marriage will reach majority status too at some point in the 2010′s.

Furthermore, there are even more not-so-good numbers for NOM. As the levels of religious influence in the general population fall, and the levels of atheists/agnostics/non-fundamentalists rise, numbers in favor of gay marriage will likely increase at a faster rate.

It seems that under these circumstances, NOM’s best bet for having their gay marriage-free world would be to stand still and do nothing. Seriously. The best bet for stalling a gay marriage bill is to leave it up to our always-adept lawmakers to legislate it. Everybody knows that the fastest way to kill something is to leave it to a State House (or, worse yet, the national Congress). So what if they lose California? They are taking on much bigger risks by sending the case to the Supreme Court, given the possible outcome. It would likely be irreversible at that point. You’d think they would want to sacrifice that, if it meant saving the rest of the nation. (The pro-America parts only, of course.) Perhaps their only saving grace is that the Supreme Court is composed entirely of oldness and Antonin Scalia’s gigantic head. The last thing they should want would be a repeal of DOMA, and sending this case to the Supreme Court could lead to that!

(Seriously though, why is there a National Organization for Marriage? Isn’t gay marriage inevitable already?)

Referendum 71 Approve/Reject by County

Washington State is a diverse state in many respects – diverse people, places, ideas, everything. Diversity is at the core of everything we are taught in school, in the images we see in local media, and in the history of our state itself. This diversity is an asset to our state and our region as a whole by providing all our citizens with a rich sense of background and unity, because while we are diverse, we are also all rooted in our region’s common heritage in nature and independence.

So why am I about to argue against the political diversity of our state and region when I say that Eastern Washington and Western Washington should split ways? Well, it might seem like an odd point-of-view, but it is indeed an important aspect to consider we think about what is best for the citizens of our state.

The above map was taken from the website of the Washington State Secretary of State’s web site. It shows which way each particular county voted on Referendum 71 by plurality of the total number of votes in each county. For those of you that don’t know (or for any out-of-state readers), Referendum 71 is a referendum sent to the voters to “Approve” or “Reject” the state’s new “Everything-but-Marriage” law. This law, passed by the Washington State Legislature and signed by Governor Gregoire earlier this year, grants those in domestic partnerships all the benefits of marriage without actually calling it “marriage.” (The legislature thought this would pacify most right-wingers against “same-sex marriage,” but apparently they were wrong.) The new law not only gives rightful benefits to gay couples in committed and loving relationships, but also to senior citizens and any other couple in a domestic partnership situation. The law was brought to referendum by a group named Protect Marriage Washington, which led a rather suspect signature drive to put the new everything-but-marriage law on the ballots for the voters to decide. This group obscured the purpose of this new law, and painted it as “homosexuals trying to gain the right to marry” in order to drum up support from the anti-equality right-wing base in Washington State. While there is much I could say about this new law, Protect Marriage Washington, and Referendum 71 in general, that is for another post.

As of this posting date, Referendum 71 is passing by a slim margin, but passing nonetheless. Washington is to be commended as the first state in the country to grant almost-marriage abilities to gay couples by a popular referendum. However, as the above image illustrates, there is clearly a political divide between East and West in our state. And by no means am I basing this conclusion on only one issue. Eastern Washington has always had the reputation of being staunchly conservative in comparison to Western Washington’s generally progressive liberal political ideals. This stereotype is proven by voting statistics in past elections: Gregoire’s gubernatorial wins over Rossi in 2004 and 2008, Maria Cantwell’s win over Mike McGavick in 2006, Patty Murray’s win over George Nethercutt in 2004, and many other elections in years past for both referenda and elected officials. As you can see, the East is much “redder” than the West. While it is beneficial to have political differences in different areas to provide balance and cause for rational discourse, it is clear that, due to the severity of the political leanings of both sides of our state, Washington is politically schizophrenic.

And it’s not just politics that separate our state. The West benefits from tourism, manufacturing, service, and high-tech industry, while the economy in the East is dominated by agriculture. Western Washington has large cities like Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Bellevue, and Bellingham, while Eastern Washington is chock full of small towns and agrarian communities (Spokane and maybe Pullman being the exceptions). The West is rainy, green, and coastal, and the East is dry and full of grassy plains the likes of which you would see in the middle of the country or canyons like you would see in the Southwest. Both halves of the state have things to offer and are very beautiful regions in and of themselves, but both halves are very different.

Both sides of the state would benefit from a split. Western Washington would be free to be progressive and liberal, while the East could freely embrace the conservative values it always votes for overwhelmingly in state elections. Presidential elections would be aided by this ideological split, for Democrats would no longer take all of Washington’s electoral votes because of the West’s dominance in population and congressional districts, and the East would be free to give its electoral votes to Republican candidates, as is the trend in elections. The West would be free to pass transportation levies for mass transit and freeway maintenance in its large cities, and such tax burdens would not need to be placed on citizens in the East who don’t use these systems on a regular basis. Separating the state is no different from the age-old policy of gerrymandering for congressional districts, and this policy would demonstrably help both sides of the state move forward. The Legislature and other NGO’s should take a hard and definitive look at effects that would result from such a split of our state, and take such matters seriously.

For further reading and more points of view on this topic: Check out the Wikipedia article for the “State of Lincoln” here, see a Seattle Times article about separating here, or one from the Spokane Spokesman-Review here and here.