Judge lets gay couples register in Oregon

Rush for domestic partnerships predicted when offices open Monday

PORTLAND, Ore. - A state law allowing gay couples to register as domestic partners belatedly took effect Friday after a federal judge ruled the state's process of disqualifying petition signatures was consistent enough to be valid.

The state quickly announced that the domestic partnership applications were available online, and jubilant gay-rights activists predicted hundreds of couples would line up on Monday morning at county offices to register.

"We're a family. We've been waiting for this for a long time," said a beaming Cathy Kravitz of Portland. She said she and her partner of 21 years will be among those registering on Monday.

The law passed by the 2007 Legislature was to take effect when the new year started, but U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman suspended it to hear testimony about a petition drive that sought to put the law before voters.

The petitions fell 96 signatures short of the 55,179 needed to refer the law to the November 2008 ballot. The petitioners claim that county clerks rejected signatures improperly.

Arizona group plans to appeal
The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based group that advocates for Christian legal issues, said it would appeal Mosman's ruling.

Fund lawyer Austin Nimocks had argued that a signature on a petition should have the same weight as a signature on a ballot, and that elections officials should have made more of an effort to contact voters whose signatures were disqualified.

But Mosman said signatures on a petition amounted to, "a call for an election, not a substitution for an election."

Testimony at the hearing turned on whether Oregon counties had a "common standard" to evaluate whether a voter's signature on a petition was valid. Mosman said the state had supplied enough evidence — if just barely — that a common standard existed in all 36 counties.

Petitioners plan to start another drive to put the domestic partnership law to a referendum.

"We want to vote — we think that our signatures mean something and it was an arbitrary move by the secretary of state's office," said Carolyn Wendell, who was a chief petitioner in the lawsuit.

Gay rights groups said they were prepared to continue fighting, both in court and on the ballot.

"The (Alliance Defense Fund) is an out-of-state group that could care less about the individual rights of folks here in Oregon," said Jeana Frazzini, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon. "They have certainly demonstrated that through the harm they have caused to same sex couples across this state because of the delay they've faced for the past month."

Inheritances, joint tax returns
Gay couples who register as domestic partners will be able to file joint state tax returns, inherit each other's property and make medical choices on each other's behalf, along with a host of other state benefits given to married Oregonians.

In 2004, about 3,000 same-sex couples were granted marriage licenses in Multnomah County, the largest county in Oregon. But Oregon voters later approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage, and the state Supreme Court nullified the marriage licenses.

Oregon becomes the ninth state to approve spousal rights in some form for gay couples, joining Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maine, California, Washington and Hawaii. Massachusetts is the only state that allows gay couples to marry.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22960443/

Homophobia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A protest by The Westboro Baptist Church, a group identified by the Anti-Defamation League as "virulently homophobic

Homophobia (from Greek: ὁμο homo[sexual], "same, equal" + φοβία [phobia], "fear") is a non-clinical term^[3] used to describe the fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.^[4] It can also mean hatred, hostility, disapproval of, or prejudice towards homosexuals, or homosexual behavior or cultures.^[5] Homophobic is the adjective form of this term used to describe the qualities of these characteristics while homophobe is the noun form given as a title to individuals with "homophobic" characteristics.

Some believe any usage of homophobia is controversial^[6] and several dictionaries characterize this type of fear as irrational.^[7][8][9] It can also mean hatred, hostility, disapproval of, or prejudice towards homosexual people,

The term homophobia is often used collectively with other terms denoting bigotry and discrimination. In a 1998 address, Coretta Scott King asserted that, "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood." Likewise, George Yancey, writing in Christian Ethics Today associates "sexism, racism, class distinctions, or homophobia" with one another and views them all as "varieties of discrimination," although he argues that they are not identical.^[17]

Some claim that some or most homophobes are repressed homosexuals, but this claim is somewhat controversial. In 1996, a controlled study of 64 heterosexual men (half claimed to be homophobic by experience and self-reported orientation) at the University of Georgia found that the allegedly homophobic men (as measured by the Index of Homophobia)^[28] were considerably more likely to experience more erectile responses when exposed to homoerotic images than non-homophobic men.

     Gay rights has scored another victory for same sex spousal rights in Oregon. Though I am "straight", I feel that "gay rights" is on the level of "civil rights". Like Senator Hilary Clinton, I feel that cities, counties and states should decide how to define marriage or spousal rights between same sex relationships. I don't feel gay marriages destroy the institution of marriage. "Shacking up" and adultery destroy the institution of marriage. Monogamous same sex relationships should enjoy the spousal rights of marriage partners, in my opinion.

tags: oregon  same sex marriage  hilary clinton  america  politics  love  gay rights  

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