March 04, 2004
(Updated) The Process Distraction
A Comment On The Commentary
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
Everyone has become obsessively fixated upon the alleged irregularities of the process which led to Multnomah County's legal determination that disrimination discrimination against same-sex marriage violated the Oregon Constitution.
Let's start in on this subject by turning to today's Steve Duin column in The Oregonian.
Duin calls the process "a shameless crusade" that made a "mockery" of democratic processes, and calls those members of the Board of Commissioners who were involved "defensive, timid and disengaged."
Duin falls for Commissioner Lonnie Roberts cry-baby routine about being left out of the discussions, uninterested it seems in Commissioner Rojo de Steffey pointing out elsewhere in the paper, "It's not unusual for commissioners to be kept out of some issues that other commissioners are working on."
Then Duin goes off the deep end when he says this:
This wasn't a quest for constitutional certainty. This was blatant, polarizing activism. This was a mission, a secret mission crafted to keep the conflicted, the curious and everyone else .
Where to begin. First, there is no constitutional certainty until the highest court available to a particular matter making a ruling. But this undeniably was a matter of seeking the legal opinion of the County Attorney as to whether or not the County currently was violating the constitution by denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Even if the move to ask for such a legal opinion was motivated -- in small part or large -- by a secret and fervent hope that the County indeed could begin issuing such licenses, that's still not "blatant, polarizing activism."
One of the jobs of the County Attorney is to make a legal evaulation as to whether or not the County is obeying the law. Asking for such a legal opinion at this time can reasonably be called something of an activist move. But the only reason it's polarizing is because so many people refuse to accept that the state should not be discriminating against same-sex couples.
As for keeping people "in the dark until gay and lesbian couples had their marriage licenses in hand" this is just a vaguely scare-mongering lie. OPB News reported on February 25 that the County was looking into the matter. It's hardly the fault of the Board of Commissioners that neither Duin nor anyone else in the media or the public (excepting ourselves) were too lazy to notice.
Duin also plays the gender card, as many other critics of the decision have been doing (for what it's worth this isn't new).
"Four women on the Multnomah County board just declared war," Duin writes. "Not just on the opponents of gay marriage, but on the undecided, unsolicited, unnerved mass in the middle."
No, four politicians who happened to have a moral commitment to civil rights declared war on the medieval mindset that still persists in this society when it comes to equal protection under the law for gays and lesbians. They did so through a process that the Board of Commissioners uses for other issues all the time. And they did so because it was right.
Meanwhile, one of the editorials in today's paper also goes on the attack, calling the County's decision a "secret conspiracy" and "sickening" and calling the Commissioners in question arrogant, self-indulgent and "dictatorial."
"Dialogue is what you do before you make a decision, Chairwoman Linn," says the paper. As a general rule, this is true.
But when what's at stake is a matter of fundamental civil rights, and the institutionalization of discrimination -- especially of a type directly prohibited by the state's constitution -- there's no excuse for delay except to engage in waffling obfuscation.
Yes, activists lobbied Commissioners to look into the matter. And yes, receptive leaders took heed and asked the County Attorney for a legal opinion. Nothing therein is a fundamental violation of process, no matter how many people happen to dislike the outcome.
But once the County Attorney determined that the County was violating the constitution by discriminating against some couples based upon their same-sex nature, anything other than immediate action would have been an acknowledgement that it was permissible for the County to break the law.
Update
Over at The Oregon Blog, Jeff says the following:
A different question, not much addressed, is this: did the county do it in the right way? I am not excited about calling the enterprise into question, but if the Josephine County Commissioners had used the same process and outlawed gay marriage, I think I'd be a little upset.
Well, it would end up, one way or the other, in the courts -- just as Multnomah County's move will. We have no particular problem with that process. Although it likely would have seemed a little odd if a county, let's say with a fresh legal opinion from their attorney in hand saying that granting same-sex marriage licenses was against the law, went and did something public to make the point. In all likelihood, they haven't been issuing such licenses all along anyway.
And let's make sure we're clear on one other thing, which makes the above hypothetical not quite parallel to what's going on here: Multntomah County didn't legalize same-sex marriage -- it got a legal opinion from its attorney saying that it already was legal. In a properly parallel but opposite situation, a county would simply be looking at a legal analysis determining that same-sex marriage was already against the law -- they wouldn't be outlawing it themselves.
Posted at 01:29 PM | PermalinkComments (8) | TrackBacks (2)
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Comments (8)
citizen on 04 Mar 2004
Regardless of content agreement it is very unfortunate his reporting is...well, wrong.
I think I will let him know-
Steve Duin
503-221-8597
steveduin@aol.com
Kris Hasson-Jones on 04 Mar 2004
That pointed remark about "four women" is certainly phobic--does Duin normally freak out about women doing their jobs, or call them feminazis or anything like that?
myrln on 04 Mar 2004
And of course, the "blatant, polarizing activism," if any, was initiated by the Dumbya sitting in the White House and calling for a constitutional amendment that would make that liberating document discriminatory. That's a call picked up by narrow minds and narrower hearts.
Jack Bog on 04 Mar 2004
It was breaking a law either way. The choice was really which law to break. The state statutes clearly contemplate "husband" and "wife." It's only a reading of the state constitution that conflicts with that.
I would respectfully submit that before a county decides that it is going to violate a state statute on the ground that it's unconstitutional, a public discussion is by far the better practice.
alan on 04 Mar 2004
I can't resist: Is 'disrimination' something sexual? ;)
The One True b!X on 04 Mar 2004
I'm not at liberty to say.
Jack Bog on 04 Mar 2004
I was disriminated shortly after birth.
The One True b!X on 04 Mar 2004
For what it's worth, no I have not gone transparancy-crazy. Normally I correct typos just by correcting them, but since this one prompted, well, you can see what it prompted, I didn't want to make the comments here incomprehensible by simply correcting it. Hence the strike-through.