My Mom has a Wife! Congratulate me!

Oregon justices nullify 3,000 gay marriages
Governor wants expanded rights, lawmakers to weigh next
The Associated Press
Updated: 11:48 a.m. ET April 14, 2005

SALEM, Ore. - The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday nullified nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples by Multnomah County a year ago.

advertisement
The court said while the county can question the constitutionality of laws governing marriage, they are a matter of statewide concern so the county had no authority to issue licenses to gay couples.

Members of the state Legislature had been awaiting the ruling to give them guidance on how to proceed on the issue of same-sex couples. Last November, Oregon voters approved a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Vermont is the first and still the only state to offer civil unions to gays, passing a law in 2000. Massachusetts has allowed gay marriage since May.

Governor's stand
On Wednesday, Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski said he will push for a law allowing gay couples in Oregon to form civil unions that would give them many of the rights available to married couples.

Kulongoski’s backing of a civil unions law expands on his announcement in January that he would support legislation extending anti-discrimination protections to gays.

“As I stated in January, we face a great moral challenge to make sure opportunity is an open door through which every citizen can pass — not a revolving door which turns for some and doesn’t budge for others,” he said.

Those against, in favor
Tim Nashif, head of the Oregon Family Council and the Defense of Marriage Coalition, said a civil unions law would be “pretty hard to swallow” in view of voters’ approval of a gay marriage ban, Nashif said.

The state’s leading gay rights group, Basic Rights Oregon, praised the governor’s decision to move ahead on civil unions legislation.

“All Oregonians should take pride today in Gov. Kulongoski’s tremendous public and personal commitment to ending discrimination,” said Roey Thorpe, the group’s executive director.
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Happy anniversary Maria's mom!

Tell me I am not the only one left quizzical by this fool's choice of language?

Oh, and yeah, Happy Anniversary to the happy couple.

Published: April 14, 2005

Oregon's highest court ruled today that 3,000 same-sex marriages held a year ago in one county were null and void, saying that the county had overstepped its authority and that the marriage licenses it had issued were unconstitutional under Oregon law.

The Oregon Supreme Court opinion drew heavily on a vote by Oregonians last November approving a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. But the justices also ruled that even before the ballot measure was voted in, Oregon law had rendered the marriages - performed last March in Multnomah County, which includes Portland - illegal.

Advertisement

"County officials were entitled to have their doubts about the constitutionality of limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples," Justice W. Michael Gillette wrote in the ruling. "But, marriage and the laws governing it are matters of statewide, not local, concern."

The court ruling also said, "Today, marriage in Oregon - an institution once limited to opposite-sex couples only by statute - now is so limited by the State Constitution as well."

The court did not address the question of whether gay couples, in legal civil unions, are entitled to the same rights and benefits as heterosexual couples, a question that is emerging as a new focus of both social conservatives and gay rights groups. Vermont is the only state that legally sanctions civil unions, but both Oregon and Connecticut are debating legislative measures that would make that option open to gay couples.

"Those marriages performed last year are not valid and that, of course, is extremely disappointing," said Rebekah Kassell, a spokeswoman for Basic Rights Oregon, one of the plaintiffs in the case. "But we are going to continue to advocate for civil unions and we are confident that the courts will end the exclusion of same-sex couples from these protections for their relationships and their families."

In Oregon, where Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski introduced a bill this week to require civil unions under the State Constitution, state lawyers argued before the Supreme Court that while Multnomah County's decision to issue the marriage licenses was unconstitutional, gay Oregonians should be afforded the same benefits as married couples.

"The state's position from the outset was that the fundamental issue was whether or not same-sex couples were entitled to the rights and privileges of marriage, not just the institution of marriage itself," said Kevin Neely, a spokesman for State Attorney General Hardy Myers.

Oregon is one of 18 states with constitutional amendments defining marriage as between a man and a woman, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Legal cases tackling the question of whether gays can marry are winding their way through various state and county courts in at least six other states, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a national advocacy group. They include New York, Washington and California, where gay marriages were performed en masse in San Francisco shortly before the Oregon marriage licenses were granted.

Massachusetts is the only state where gay marriage is legal, under a decision last year by that state's highest court.

***************

Maybe I'll encourage them to renew their vows here in Massachusetts.

The photo of the Scheuermanns, a heterosexual married
couple, smugly basking in the glow of the annulment of over
3,000 marriages (on the front page of Friday's paper) was
appalling.

Should racial segregation ever be reinstated in Oregon, I
look forward to seeing similarly smug photos of smiling
Klansmen on your front page, and dispassionate, even-handed
articles on how the state has reaffirmed their most deeply
held beliefs.

--

But no, I don't think I'll send it, as it's a bit hysterical and pointless.

http://rschrade.brinkster.net/stuffs/squares.jpg

That's the article about them, for those playing along at home. I love how they don't have the courage of their convictions enough to put a sign up during the campaign (lest their neighbors be offended) but now that it's all nice and legal they're willing to be ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE DAILY NEWSPAPER to rub it in their neighbors' faces.

God. I hope that, several years down the line, the anti-gay marriage laws will be considered unconstitutional and will be repealed. Because it's not right. It's just not right. It's not even right MORALLY. How can someone, anyone, deny someone else equal protection and courtesy under the laws we're governed just because of the way they're born? It's as ludicrous and wrong to me as would be a law that restricted marriage to people with blue eyes or something.

All human, not always humane

I have long intended to commend you for your even-handed coverage of Multnomah County's gay marriage controversy. The Oregonian has never failed to put a human face to the issue.

Friday's articles, highlighting the contrast between the happiness of Melanie and Wilf Scheuermann and the despair of Rivka and Lauren Gevurtz [about the Oregon Supreme Court's decision to nullify the marriages of same-sex couples performed in Multnomah County in 2004], were an encapsulation of the disparate perspectives that engender the debate.

And for me, the accompanying photos were a graphic illustration of the most disturbing aspect of this issue -- that one group can take such pleasure in a decision that causes others pain. Just another reminder that, although we are all human, we are not always humane.

D.M. SUYDAM Southeast Portland

Which is a pleasant and subtle slap against the Scheuermanns, but approves of (or even, kisses up to) the O being wishy-washy in the face of bigotry.

ONTARIO, Calif.

A 14-year-old student was expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians, the school's superintendent said in a letter.

Shay Clark was expelled from Ontario Christian School on Thursday.

"Your family does not meet the policies of admission," Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother.

Stob wrote that school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship," The Los Angeles Times reported in Friday's edition.

Stob could not be reached for comment by the newspaper. Shay and her parents said they won't fight the ruling.

School administrators learned of the parents' relationship this week after Shay was reprimanded for talking to the crowd during a football game, Tina Clark said.
Clark and her partner have been together 22 years and have two other daughters, ages 9 and 19.

"immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship,"

Or, say, casting judgment.