Since gay marriage became legal late last year in Washington, there have been thousands of same-sex weddings. The Department of Health for the state says there were 2,413 gay marriages between December 6 of last year and March 31 of this year based on the number of signed marriage certificates have been turned into the state.
Tim Church, a spokesman with the health department, said there was a spike in same sex marriage in December. “That’s not a big surprise. We knew there were people who were anxiously awaiting this law to go into effect, and there was also news coverage of people standing in line waiting for midnight to strike so that they could get their license and get married,” he said.
Figures released by King County show that almost half the marriage certificates issued between December and March were for same-sex weddings. Other counties in Washington reported a far lower percentage, except for Lincoln County just west of Spokane which had an equal division of marriages between gay and straight couples during that same time period – one heterosexual and one same-sex.