WOOOO HOOOO!!!! FINALLY!!!!

Me and my guy hope to see all you Lane County folk at the courthouse in Eugene on Monday!!!!

OUR DAY HAS FINALLY COME!

This is a really good day for all Oregonians, even for those of us who are not part of the GLT community. This puts our state one step closer to equal rights, and for this, we can all be proud.

I can't believe it! I thought I'd never see something like this in my life time! After 22 years, I guess I DO have to give my ol' man a ring to put on his finger!

Whew. Finally. What a nice Valentin's Day treat!

I was so depressed and angry when I found out the law was being denied for a trumped-up legal challenge. The narrow-minded hatemongers just won't go away. They won't give us anything; it's street-to-street, house-to-house, room-to-room fighting, but we will eventually win, because we are on the side of justice. This is a victory for the GLBTQ community and for everyone who values freedom and equal rights.

This is a big victory. Not to rain on anyone's parade, but fanaticism knows NO bounds. This "war" is not over. It will not be over until MARRIAGE is the word and it is the word in every state in the union. However, the momentum and time are on OUR side. Social justice will prevail.

Using a complicated set of procedural maneuvers that came to be called the "Midday Massacre" of SB1000, Minnis stopped justice right in its tracks. She again thwarted democracy only a few days later by throwing out a 140 year old rule that allows legislators to extract a bill from committee and bring it to an up or down vote. She resorted to these extreme measures because she knew that YOU had built the support for this bill and if it came to a vote it would pass. Knowing that we had the support and still the bill did not pass is nothing less than frustrating, infuriating, and unfair. Some have already said to us, "Well, what did you expect?" as though somehow we shouldn't have decided to fight if we didn't know ahead of time that we would win. So let me just say it now, loud and clear: we expected justice, we expected fairness, and we expected equality. We still expect those things, and we will not stop expecting them, ever. We also expected a fight, and of course we knew we might not win. "What did you expect?" presumes that if the struggle is tough, it's not worth the trouble. I believe that the opposite is true, that the most valuable things are those that are hard won. ... A friend of mine sent me a quote from Winston Churchill that says: "If you're going through hell, keep going." I love that! We have seen how close we can get, and it's clear that we will eventually win the equality we deserve.

BRO, August 5, 2005

Maybe not everything that was wanted or deserved - but still, a very good day.

First, congratulations to all who have been arbitrarily relegated to second class status for a long long time.

Don't forget we're still there. My family isn't equal to yours until the state offers us the same package of rights and benefits that they offer you. And "civil union" doesn't cut it; it's a second class package - not even portable to other states or countries.

My husband and I were married in Canada - a marriage recognized throughout our northern neighbor, and in Massachusetts, South Africa, and much of secular Europe.

But right here in Oregon, too many supporters of the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, the Mormon Church, and white and black Protestant congregations work hard to make their stunningly baseless, religious prejudice trump state and federal constitutional guarantees of equal protection for all.

Yes it's a step. And I'm sure that aging Boomer Catholics like Teddy K. and Hardy M. are breathing a sigh of relief - because goodness, what more can we want? Well, we want equal treatment under the law - our basic civil rights, just like you.

**It's time to offer "civil unions" to straight couples - since "marriage" in Oregon has been selectively denied by amendment to some families, based on spurious religious grounds; and yet the constitution still requires that rights and responsibilities be offered equally by the state.

Sounds like a job for the state Attorney General (but probably the NEXT one...)

Excellent. I'm glad Oregon has joined my former home of Massachusetts.

They say that Mosman's heart grew three sizes that day

This is such a welcome relief today!! YEAH!!! Bring on Monday!

My family isn't equal to yours until the state offers us the same package of rights and benefits that they offer you.

Oregon Bill, don't domestic partnerships give gays and lesbians the same state benefits and rights that marriage does? The federal government still discriminates, and most states refuse to give domestic partnerships the same reciprocal recognition that they give marriage, but hasn't Oregon now done everything it can as a state to ensure equality? Even if Oregon called it marriage, the feds and other states could still discriminate.

Please let me know if I'm wrong about this. It seems like now we need to take the fight to other states and Washington, DC.

Yes, it's great. No, it's not perfect - it's not marriage. I think of it as analogous to the Emancipation Proclamation - better than halfway, but still a long way to go before full equality.

Yeah! What great news, definately a step in the right direction for Oregon.

Well, how about that!? A month late, well, a month and two days in effect. But, in the end, the judge did the right thing. I just hope he forces those who brought the lawsuit to pay legal costs to the state and others who defended the law. In fact, those who brought this suit should be liable to gay couples for any costs incurred by the delay.

clicky Adding a link to the ruling. Interesting read. Problem for me is that I had the time off set for Jan 2nd. Now I have to call in sick on Monday.

Now my wyf & I will have legal partnerships in all of the left coast states.

Domestic partners will still pay taxes on the imputed value of the benefits. Still not equal but a good first step. I'm afraid the problem won't go away with the passing of the boomers. Hate seems to find a way to leak into the next generations, usually with a little help from the tax exempt pulpit.

"the legislative act that set up the domestic partnerships": HB 2007 The summary (not part of the bill) follows:

Establishes requirements and procedures for entering into domestic partnership contract between individuals of same sex.

Provides that any privilege, immunity, right or benefit granted by law to individual who is or was married is granted to individual who is or was in domestic partnership. Provides that any responsibility imposed by law on individual who is or was married is imposed on individual who is or was in domestic partnership.

Provides that any privilege, immunity, right, benefit or responsibility granted or imposed by law to or on spouse with respect to child of either spouse is granted to or imposed on partner with respect to child of either partner.

Hey wait a minute, I thought Mosman was nothing but an evil right-wing Bush-appointed flunky?

That's what yo-yos on this site were saying a month ago.

Perhaps he's a good 9th circuit or even Supreme Court candidate after all ...

Even a right-wing flunky of a judge could recognize a picayune argument without merit masquerading as a serious challenge to a properly constituted law. That characterization of Judge Michael Mosman is yours, not mine.

The judge ruled on nothing about domestic partnerships, but the contention by the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund that signatories to the Oregon petition must be treated as voters, which they obviously were not at the time. The Alliance Defense Fund is a right-wing group which files anti-gay and anti-choice lawsuits around the country.

Oregon Bill, don't domestic partnerships give gays and lesbians the same state benefits and rights that marriage does?

No.

Portability of rights and benefits is a huge issue - our marriage license, issued in Canada, automatically confers similar rights and benefits in states and countries that offer marriage to all couples, without religious prejudice.

So a straight married couple that travels to, say, Spain, or Massachusetts (which care about equality of opportunity) is married, and treated as such, legally - likewise, if my husband and I travel to these places we are treated, legally, the same.

But a civil union? In some American states, a civil union offers this subset of benefits (less than marriage), while in other states, it offers another. In most states, there are no civil unions at all. So merely by crossing the state line into Washington, whatever subset of rights and benefits now offered by civil unions in Oregon simply vanish.

Also, as a married couple with kids living in Oregon, which now defines "marriage" in religious terms, in the state constitution, does our Canadian marriage, recognized in Spain, and Massachusetts, morph into the more limited subset of benefits now offered by Oregon?

Or do we - unlike that straight couple - have to pay another $60 for another piece of paper to obtain these rights? If that's not an undue burden, I'm not sure what is...

Conferring state rights and benefits selectively, based on baseless, prejudicial religious hoo-hah, has created an unequal situation, and a legal nightmare, too.

Again, a job for the Attorney General (and again, most likely a future AG)

Two (more) ways to think about this:

1) What if we were talking about a different target of baseless religious prejudice?

"Civil unions" were selectively offered today to interracial couples who'd like some of the benefits of marriage. These rights are limited to interracial couples who remain in Oregon, and they do not confer any federal rights or benefits. But equal marriage can't be offered because Christian voters recently passed a constitutional amendment defining "marriage" in purely religious terms ("my goddess just hates it when Blacks marry Asians - that sort of thing," said Bishop Vlazny of the Archdiocese of Portland, in a statement issued to the press...)

2) What if it were a different constitutionally guaranteed basic civil right?

Gay and lesbian Oregonians today received the right to vote in state elections, but not federal elections - and these voting rights do not confer any additional voting rights should they move to other states... The pastor of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church said this represented an "unholy attack on the sanctity of traditional voting - which my goddess claims should be restricted to people of faith and heterosexuality."

While I fully support the right of someone like OBill to be unhappy with the rights conferred by HB2007, the Oregon Family Fairness Act, it is unhelpful to his cause to deny Miles' contention that "domestic partnerships give gays and lesbians the same state benefits and rights that marriage does".

His rebuttal is a lack of portability of benefits outside Oregon, where our law has no jurisdiction.

The reality is recognized in the text of HB2007:

"The Legislative Assembly recognizes that the Oregon Constitution limits marriage to the union of one man and one woman. The Legislative Assembly does not seek to alter this definition of marriage in any way through the Oregon Family Fairness Act and recognizes that the Legislative Assembly cannot bestow the status of marriage on partners in a domestic partnership. The Legislative Assembly recognizes that numerous distinctions will exist between these two legally recognized relationships. The Legislative Assembly recognizes that the legal recognition of domestic partnerships under the laws of this state may not be effective beyond the borders of this state and cannot impact restrictions contained in federal law."

We have gone as far as possible to ensure equality in Oregon without getting into a whole 'nother fight to repeal the M36 Constitutional amendment. Taking on that fight concurently would ensure that the rights due would be delayed much more than one month. Go ahead and denigrate the accomplishment of the 2007 Legislature if you will, but recognize that the alternative for now would be a continuation of the status quo, as left in the wake of M36.

Thanks to OBill for not one but two irrelevent "strawman" arguments. Please stay on this planet, not one in some alternate universe, to make argument about Oregon law.

It's also worth noting that eliminating M36 won't help with the portability issues. Gay marriage in Massachusetts isn't portable to other states, either, and while the Supreme Court hasn't yet weighed in on it, most legal analyses I've read suggest that state reciprocality won't require other states to recognize marriages that are not legal in their state. The portability issue can only be addressed on a state-by-state basis, or with a federal law.

I'm sympathetic to Oregon Bill's frustration that domestic partnerships won't give equal benefits to gays and lesbians. My only point is that I think Oregon has done all we can do -- calling it marriage won't give gays and lesbians in Oregon any more rights outside of Oregon than they now have. What we need to do is mobilize to take this fight nationwide. It's only a matter of time before equality is recognized everywhere.

Thanks to OBill for not one but two irrelevent "strawman" arguments. Please stay on this planet, not one in some alternate universe, to make argument about Oregon law.

The "alternative universe" is the one where your invisible god or goddess makes pronouncements about who does and does not deserve basic civil protections...

Right here, right now my family's as real as one headed by interracial parents, and my right to marriage is as real as my right to vote.

Miles, if by eliminating M36 you mean validating same-sex marriages, they WOULD be portable--anywhere same sex marriages are also validated.

Exactly. It's no small improvement, either. Oregon should offer marriage equally - not "marriage" for one set of families and "civil unions" for another. It matters.

You have the right to be unhappy, and run full-tilt after another windmill, but save some of your energy for the defense of the rights we've won under HB2007. The right-wing zealots only got off one wild shot at it so far, but they've vowed to be back.

You have the right to be unhappy, and run full-tilt after another windmill, but save some of your energy for the defense of the rights we've won under HB2007. The right-wing zealots only got off one wild shot at it so far, but they've vowed to be back.

Ed -

It ain't a windmill. It's the equal protection clause of our state and federal constitutions - and efforts by the local Catholic Archdiocese, Mormon Church, and Protestant churches to legally diminish our families are a good, legitimate, not to mention juicy target.

Religious people work very hard, and often successfully, to harm our families because of supernatural prejudice over whom their fictional gods find offensive, which means they have no serious argument for denying our families our equal, basic rights.

They've done this before. Dehumanizing others as "immoral," "sinful," or "unsaved" is something religions do best.

Yet slowly, our valuable American ideal of equality for all has expanded to include more and more Americans. Ed, your gay and lesbian neighbors, friends, family, co-workers etc. will get there, too, and another holy windmill will topple down...

I don't see a straw-man in OBill's arguments either. I'm glad to be able to have financial, physical, and medical access to my family within my own home state, at least. And I'm grateful for all the people that worked so hard for 30 years to finally make our new laws happen.

But it's a good START only. Carlin said, Religion is like a lift in your shoes. If it makes you feel better, fine. Just don't tell me I have to wear your shoes.

An Abramic definition of marriage has no business in our state's constitution.

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