To Love, Honor, and Be Gay

Associate Chief Justice Charles Johnson

Nobody expected Charles Johnson to be elected to the court in 1991. He was an unknown sole practitioner representing working stiffs in Gig Harbor and running against the sitting chief justice, Keith Callow. Johnson did win, however, and has won re-election twice since, becoming a respected advocate for the uniqueness of the state constitution and its extensive liberties. He teaches constitutional law at Seattle University and was fiercely opposed by many of the state's prosecutors during his 2002 re-election campaign. During interviews, his patience, humor, and reverence for the law reveal themselves. Nobody can say where he'll come down on same-sex marriage.

Jim Johnson

Just elected last November, Johnson is best known in Seattle for the legal company he has kept over the years: as chief legal Indian fighter in Slade Gorton's attorney general's office, as initiative king Tim Eyman's lawyer, and for representing those anti-environment warriors, the Building Industry Association of Washington. He admits to being a libertarian but says any idea that he'll be a conservative activist on the bench is a lot of hooey. He is passionate about the rights and liberties of the state constitution—believing the courts have let some of the state's founding document, particularly the clauses on initiative, referendum, and recall, lie too fallow. He is friends with the court's other colorful libertarian, Richard Sanders, and says both share a philosophy that the interpretation of the constitution should not stray too far from what the document actually says. For this reason, he's not considered a likely supporter of same-sex marriage.

Barbara Madsen

In 1991, Seattle Municipal Court Judge Madsen watched in horror and disbelief as an all-male U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee treated Anita Hill's account of sexual harassment at the hands of then–U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas with little respect. Madsen resolved to run for state Supreme Court in response and joined in the Year of the Woman, getting elected in 1992. Since, she has distinguished herself as a justice who guards the rights of criminal defendants with extreme zeal and regards the claims of civil plaintiffs with lots of skepticism. It's an unusual combination that has earned her the enmity of both prosecutors and some trial attorneys. She, like many of the justices, wishes people would understand the difference between their personal points of view and their job interpreting law. Madsen gets a lot of e-mail that misses that distinction. There is no consensus about how she'll rule on gay marriage.

Susan Owens

In 2000, when Owens ran for the Supremes, she was a tribal court and district court judge from Forks. Her rural residence and folksy charm made it easy to underestimate the graduate of prestigious Duke University. She bested several better-known attorneys and judges to win a spot on the high court. Court watchers haven't really gotten a strong sense of her, although members of the criminal bar think she favors the prosecution in close cases. She says that during her first year on the bench, she was walking on a cloud. Since then, the nasty e-mails from citizens angry over controversial decisions and the unending box loads of briefs have brought her back to earth. Still, she loves the position and is dedicated to the legal process. There's a whole lot of silence when people are asked to predict where she'll come down on gay marriage.

Richard Sanders

One observer says Sanders has a "permanent schizophrenia" between his social conservatism, grounded in Catholicism, and his legal libertarianism. Sanders says they co-exist but are not in conflict, since the former orders his personal life and the latter determines his jurisprudence. Sanders is the darling of the state's defense bar and the bane of prosecutors. He is highly protective of defendant rights in criminal cases, freedom of the press, religious liberty, and property rights. He won a high-profile struggle for his own freedom of speech after briefly speaking at an antiabortion rally in 1997. Currently, he is fighting charges that he violated judicial ethics by speaking with incarcerated sex offenders. He summarizes part of his judicial philosophy by saying, "Words have fixed meanings." That's why he's thought by most to be unlikely to say that marriage can be anything other than a relationship between a man and a woman.

George Howland Jr.