Gay Rights in Oregon 2005

Over at GayRightsWatch.com, Bryan Harding has a long and thoughtful piece about the state of the gay rights movement in Oregon over the past year.

As we take a look back at the year that was 2005, we saw a slight positive change in public opinion regarding marriage equality in Oregon and, despite a ballot measure loss in 2004 that many said would put a damper on the movement, a big increase in visibility and activism. Whereas in the past, about less than 100 activists would show up to lobby or rally at the capitol in any given year, this year the numbers swelled to thousands...

2005 also marked the first time that any governor in the United States had sponsored and pushed forward a bill like SB1000. Some have been critical of the Governor and while we won't get into those criticisms here, the Governor's actions were not insignificant. Thank you Gov. Kulongoski....

Some in the movement have taken a naysayers approach--noting that we've done all this work and yet still have no tangible change in the law. If our movement was only a year by year effort, I might agree, but the fact is, it's not. This is a decades long struggle that began long before this movement and will continue long after. And, I don't think we can minimize the important work that is being done to get us one step closer to equality each day.

Read the rest and discuss over at GayRightsWatch.com.

Dec. 28, 2005 Posted in elsewhere.