I don't know about all the religous mumbo jumbo up above, but sometimes when you advance a cause with smoke filled room deals, and by creating law in the courts with virtually unaccountable judges, this is a possible outcome. You kick the sleeping lion, and you might get an unpleasant surprise. Even in good old Blue Oregon.

LeAnn-

Thank you for your posting and for looking for a resolve. I know that there are so many people hurting right now and there is a lot of healing to be done. The biggest fears that face my partner and I are those times of crisis of which you speak. In the face of marriage we actually saw the hope that we could be with each other and support each other in our biggest times of need as we do in our everyday lives. We were recently confronted by crisis when I was being tested for cancer. At a time that was the most scary to me, I was alone. Because I am not granted to right for my love one to be at my bed side in the hospital or to be my advocate and ask the doctor questions while I sit in fear and confusion. The thought that the one person that I share my life, my family, my finances, and my home with could not be there when I needed her most, and that I had to sit in that cold hospital room alone is simply wrong.

I was fighting this fight to be considered equal and to be able to have the support of my love ones with me in my biggest time of need. Unfortunately those who have these rights have taken them away from me. I hope that those who said "this is not an issue of discrimination" will continue fighting to make sure that we are able to have the same rights that they have, and that we will not be discriminated against. Because waking up yesterday and being told that this measure had passed meant that the more than 100 rights put into place to protect my family were now gone. And that really feels like discrimination.

A question for Sam, and please understand I'm asking this because I honestly don't know the answer and want to know it. I would assume that a person could grant power of attorney to anyone they wanted to, and that two people could enter into a legal contract that would grant each other all of the same rights and responsibilities of marriage. Wouldn't a hospital have to honor that? I've been in the hospital a number of times, and to the doctor countless times, and I've had all kinds of people come see me or come in with me. Nobody ever shut them out. So I don't understand how this can happen that they can force you to be alone at a time like that. I've also gone in to visit people in the hospital and have never been told to leave except when visiting hours were over. I have slept in my son's hospital room, and I know my father's wife slept hin his room whiole he was going through chemotherapy. Would a person not be allowed to do that if you were a "friend" rather than a spouse/parent? A lot of people I know who voted for the measure felt this was all a red herring, so that's why I'm asking. Also, I know gay couples who married in a church years ago. What is stopping people from getting married? If you could get married in a church and have a legally binding contract, where is the problem? Is it just that you want society to fully accept and condone your relationship or is it really that you cannot do what you want to do? I hope you will answer and please don't jump to conclusions about me because I think people should be able to have meaningful relationships with whomever they want (so long as both are adult humans)!

I would assume that a person could grant power of attorney to anyone they wanted to, and that two people could enter into a legal contract that would grant each other all of the same rights and responsibilities of marriage. Wouldn't a hospital have to honor that?

Yes -- the hospital-visit issue is a red herring. Anyone can visit anyone with permission. What marriage would do is allow presumptive medical decision-making on the part of a same-sex spouse, which can be achieved by a medical power of attorney.

Having said that, I think the post is dead-on; of course the ballot measure flows from prejudice. They just couldn't say that out loud.

Kari -

Thanks for the info. I like to debate intelligently, and I really have lacked knowledge on this issue! I hope more people will also chip in with information. I also tend to agree that the issue no one will really 'fess up to in this debate is simply that some people believe it's evil because the Bible says so, and others simply are repulsed because they are straight and assume that everyone is naturally like them, that being gay is a choice, and so those who engage in homosexuality must be really "perverted". I personally don't think you can ever break through to fundamentalists who take the Bible literally, but I believe those in the second category can, with time, be educated about the truth. Of course, you'll always have narrow-minded people who refuse to consider other views ... I think this will always be a more divisive issue than racial equality, but I also think it can eventually be far less contentious and that gay people can someday go about their lives without fear and ostracism.

This post is in response to both LeAnn's column and Randy's column.

Wednesday morning I layed in bed and contemplated suffocation by flannel covered pillow, not because Kerry didn't win, but because Measure 36 passed.

You see, I already knew all along that Kerry wouldn't win. The day I realized he wouldn't win was three days after President Reagan's funeral and the "nation" was mourning and carrying on like the biggest hero in the history of the planet had been tragically lost. It was then that I knew that there is a huge difference between those folks and folks like me.

Up until that point, I had always thought (and perhaps naively) that there really wasn't a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats. We were all intelligent, rational human beings, we just had differing views about the environment, the economy and foriegn policy. The Republicans I knew were mostly like Mark Hatfield and Gordon Smith, polite, educated, thoughtful people who want to make their community, state, nation better, but just had a differing opinion on how to go about it.

After Reagan's funeral, I took off my rose colored glasses and realized that the Republican party is not the same one that I grew up with. It has morphed into something strange and scary. The party that used to fight to keep goverment out of our lives, now wants government telling us who we can marry, how and when we should have children, and who we should worship. The party that used to pride themselves in being tightwads, now has created the biggest deficit in history. The party that didn't want to police the world, now wants to 'free' oil-rich countries, but leave 'resource-poor' countries to settle their problems on their own. Who is this new party? Where did these people come from? How did I miss this?

So, as I lay in bed on Wednesday morning contemplating the end, I knew the reason that I felt so bad wasn't because Kerry lost. It was because Measure 36 had passed and I hadn't seen it coming. In my wildest dreams I never would have thought that my fellow Oregonians would vote to add discriminatory language to the state constitution. Weren't my fellow Oregonians just like me, happily married, open-minded, intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate people? Who are all of these people that think it's perfectly okay to forbid a whole group of people from enjoying the same rights as the rest of population? They can't all be clones from the Oregon Citizen's Alliance.

The reason why I was so sad Wednesday morning is because I had again been caught totally unaware.

This morning, I woke up resolved to learn more, get more involved, pay better attention, to work hard getting to know the opposition and to throw away my rose colored glasses. I'm afraid if I put them on again, the next time I take them off, I'll find that I've turned into a horse on an Animal Farm.

Hi Folks...

Sally et al.. You need to do much more than take off the rose-colored glasses.

No oppressed class got anything by being polite and asking the oppressor for relief. Miners organized Miners Local Union #1 in Butte, Mt by going head to head with the company and the Pinkertons, the UAW was formed through pitched battles with GM, blacks in the US gave their lives and livelyhoods to right grievous wrongs. Rosa Parks took the seat on the bus, she didn't ask politely.

The cultural right has no problem maintaining the thin veneer of civilized discourse while laying at your feet every kind of deviant behavior known to man and beast.

Pick the worst of the churches and the most blatantly obnoxious preacher. Picket. Call him [and it will be a "him"] a bigot every day of the week, every place he goes.

Get the legal network to draw up a standard contract for partnerships and get every willing gay couple to sign up. Put in those elements that are not yet enforceable but may well be by the time you need them. If the Bush team can create "our own reality" [courtesy NY Times Magazine interview] then so can you in this slice of the west. Ignore the folks who tell you it can't be done and seek out those who say it can.

Use the nastiest dirtiest politicians and lawyers to get the hospital, police departments, insurers, etc. bigs to automatically recognize the contracts. Carry your partnership card with you.

As an economic class gays and lesbians are at the top of the heap. This country is, more than anything, about green money. Use that power to dimninish your adversaries.

Present the leg with a fait accompli in terms of legal relationships and,when they pontificate, dicker and dither, pick one prominent example to punish by any means fair and foul.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment

For all of those people who keep saying "just be patient, it will happen"

"So segregation is still with us. If democracy is to live, segregation must die. Segregation is a cancer in the body politic, which must be removed before our moral health can be realized. May I say to you this evening that we do not have long to solve this problem?

"I know there are those of you that are saying -- slow up. There are those that are saying to the Negro and his allies in the white community -- you ought to cool off. You are pushing things too fast. They are saying -- adopt a policy of moderation. If moderation means moving on towards the goal of justice with wise restraint and calm reasonableness, then moderation is a great virtue that all men must seek to achieve during this tense period of transition. If moderation means slowing up in the move for justice, and capitulating to the undemocratic practices of the guardians of the deadening status quo, then moderation is a tragic vice that all men of good will must condemn. We can't afford to slow up. We have our self-respect to maintain. But even more than that, because of our love for America, we can't afford to slow up.

"...in a real sense, the hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out. And we must act now before it is too late.

"...racial discrimination must be uprooted from American society because it is morally wrong.

"...we must get rid of segregation because it is evil and it is sinful.

"The great challenge facing our nation today is to move on with determination to solve this problem and to end segregation and discrimination and to remove them from every area of our life. I would like to mention some of the things that are to be done if this problem is to be solved.

"First, I would like to mention the role of the federal government because I think that is an important role. The federal government must play an important role if this problem is to be solved by standing up in a firm, forthright manner in protecting the rights of all of the citizens of this nation. Now if the federal government is to do its job we have got to get rid of one or two myths that are circulated all over the nation. They are being circulated now a great deal.

"One is the myth of time. We hear this over and over again. The people that live with this argument contend that only time can solve this problem which we face in race relations. They would say to the Negro, 'Just be patient and nice and continue to pray. And in a hundred years or two hundred years, this problem will work itself out.' These are the people that live with the myth of time.

"The only answer we can give to this myth is that time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively. It may well be that the forces of ill will in our nation have used time much more effectively than the forces of good will. I am convinced that we will have to repent, in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people who will bomb a church in Birmingham, Alabama, but for the appalling silence of the good people. Somewhere along the way we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts, and persistent works, of dedicated individuals that are willing to be co-workers with God. Without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. It is always necessary to help time -- and to realize that the time is always right to do right." -- Martin Luther King, Jr., Bowdoin College, May 6, 1964

Becky-

Thank you for your questions and for your interest in open dialogue about the marriage question. The fact is that federally there are more than 1,000 rights granted to married couples and in the state of Oregon over 100 rights. While my partner and I have spent several thousand dollars to secure a few of the rights granted through power of attorney, living wills, and property inheritance we would have to spend up to $7,000 to secure even just a small portion of the rights that are granted when the state recognizes your marriage.

Unfortunately those legal documents can only grant us a small portion of the rights that come with marriage. And worse of all, just because I have those legal documents doesn't mean that if I were to pass away our mutually owned property written into the will would automatically go to my partner. Family members could send property into probate and leave my partner fighting in the courts.

Social Security, taxes, pension funds, health benefits... none of these things can be shared between us as they are between you and your husband.

The list is long but the scary things to me are things like hospital visitation, rights in times of crisis.