Two men, John Singer and Paul Barwick, filed a lawsuit in King County in 1974 that was the first-ever case appealing to Washington’s Equal Rights Amendment. The ERA was two years old at the time, with voters having approved it by a 50.1% to 49.9% vote in 1972.
The Equal Rights Amendment, which is Article 31 of Washington’s constitution, says:
Equality of rights and responsibility under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.
Equal Rights Amendments going back to the 1960s have typically been thought of as efforts to facilitate the advancement of women. Therefore, it is a noteworthy historical fact that males — fighting for what they viewed as their civil rights — were the first to appeal to Washington’s ERA in the case of Singer v. Hara.
This reminds us that when anti-discrimination laws and policies are appropriately written with gender-neutral / sex-neutral language, they can and should be used to defend the rights of women and girls and the rights of men and boys.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is another good example of this. Washington Initiative for Boys and Men has published articles about Title IX violations that we hope will be rectified that involve discrimination against males in Washington:
- Pacific Science Center Should Stop Discriminating Against Boys
- ‘There Should Be No Discrimination’ Says Ellensburg Councilmember On Title IX Complaint Against Central Washington University
- Bellevue College Under Civil Rights Investigation for its Sex-specific Scholarships
The Case of Singer v. Hara
The case of Singer v. Hara was not only the first lawsuit to appeal to Washington’s Equal Rights Amendment; it was also one of the earliest same-sex marriage lawsuits in the country. Here are more interesting facts surrounding the case:
- Lloyd Hara, the King County auditor who refused to grant the men a marriage license, stated years later that he agreed with the couple’s request for a license, but his hands were tied. “As a person of color, I’ve always been concerned about discrimination against anyone. I thought it was wrong then and I still firmly feel the same way,” Mr. Hara said.
- Paul Barwick was an Army veteran who had also previously been a cadet with the Washington State Patrol.
- Both Singer and Barwick were against the institution of marriage, but they wanted to make a point that gays should have the same rights as heterosexuals. The two men were members of the local chapter of the Gay Liberation Front, a national activist group known for its confrontational methods of promoting sexual liberation.
- When asked by a reporter which of the men was the bride, Singer told the press, “We don’t believe in role-playing. We’re two people. We happen to be genital males, but two human beings who happen to be in love and want to get married.”
- The King County Superior Court rejected the claims in Singer and Barwick’s lawsuit, a ruling that was later upheld by the Court of Appeals.
- John Singer, who later changed his name to Faygele Ben-Miriam, helped produce the first gay country music album ever recorded, Lavender Country.
Same-sex marriage became legal in Washington in 2012 when the state legislature passed a law and voters approved it later that year with a 54% to 46% result. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples.
Sources: HistoryLink.org, Seattle PI