(Updated) Updates From The Same-Sex Marriage Front
Ballot Title Certified, Judge 'Clarifies' Ruling On Registration
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
Yesterday evening we noticed an Associated Press item on those 3,000 same-sex marriages which Judge Frank L. Bearden instructed the State of Oregon to register (we last covered this a week ago):
A Multnomah County judge has clarified that the status of roughly 3,000 marriage licenses issued earlier this year to gay couples must be decided by either the state Supreme Court or the Legislature.
Circuit Court Judge Frank Bearden last month ordered the state Office of Vital Statistics to register the marriages after ruling that the state's marriage law violates civil rights protections in the Oregon Constitution.
...
In a letter sent to attorneys in the case, Bearden clarified on Wednesday that registering the marriages would not require the state to recognize them as "valid," said Kevin Neely, a spokesman for the attorney general's office.
In theory, we assume Bearden's argument was that his directive in that part of his ruling was that the language in the law which requires registration of marriages conducted in Oregon technically requires the state to register these 3,000 marriages, but that doing so is a purely administrative function with no bearing on actual marriage policy.
We however continue to argue that his needing to issue any clarification at all simply underscores how piss-poor his original ruling was, in terms both of self-consistency and of desire (or lack thereof) to tackle the issues that mattered.
Meanwhile, today's Oregonian reports that the Oregon Supreme Court has approved the ballot title for the proposed Constitutional amendment defining marriage which would add to the Oregon Constitution: "It is the policy of Oregon, and its political subdivisions, that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as a marriage."
According to the paper, the Court's approval of the ballot title means that it rejected the argument from those who challenged it that it should be altered to indicate that the amendment "would place limits on the Oregon Constitution's guarantee of equal treatment for all citizens."
Presuming that amendment opponents do not request "reconsideration" of the ruling, the proposal's backers have until July 2 to gather 100,840 valid signatures in order to place the measure on the November general election ballot.
Also in the article is a mention of the Defense of Marriage Coalition arguing that putting a measure on the ballot would negate the need for the Oregon Legislature to take up the issue of same-sex marriage. But if the full Legislature comes back into any kind of special session this summer, they would be required -- under Bearden's ruling -- to take up that very issue within ninety days. So we're not entirely certain that the Coalition is correct here.
Update
According to a KGW report this afternoon:
Oregon House of Representative Speaker Karen Minnis said Friday that the state chamber would not discuss a proposed Defense of Marriage Act during its special session.
Again unresolved here is what becomes of Bearden's order that the Legislature take up the matter of same-sex marriage within ninety days of coming into any session, saying that if they did not act within that timeframe, same-sex marriages would once again be allowed to be performed.
Meanwhile an Associated Press report on the County recall efforts includes this disingenuous and inflammatory remark:
John Belgarde, state director for the Christian Coalition of Oregon, which heads the recall effort, said the problem is not what was done, but how.
"They did it in the finest communist fashion. I'm sure Mao Tse-tung and the KGB would be happy with them," he said.
Of course, intelligent people know full well that the Christian Coalition of Oregon in fact does oppose the decision itself and not merely the process by which it was made.
Update
KGW has also posted an analysis of poll numbers regarding support for a Constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Oregon. The usual splits are on display: The older, the more male, the more Republican, and/or the more rural you are, the more likely you are to believe the state has any business discriminating against gays and lesbians.
Update
KGW this evening has posted the summary (pdf) and results (pdf) for the poll referenced in the above update.
May 14, 2004 at 06:22 PM
John Belgarde, state director for the Christian Coalition of Oregon, which heads the recall effort, said the problem is not what was done, but how.
"They did it in the finest communist fashion. I'm sure Mao Tse-tung and the KGB would be happy with them," he said.
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they fall back on communism as an analogy/insult?! hahahahahahah!!! oh my g-d, the biggest belly laugh. those darn reds, those commies!
May 15, 2004 at 09:29 AM
The legislature would not have the power override a constitutional amendment. Neither could the judge. Any legislative action (in a June special session) prior to a vote (in November) would simply be a waste of time.
Even if Judge Bearden had said that all the marriages are valid and mandated the continuation of marriages in Multnomah County he would still be resting his hat on the equal privileges and immunities clause. Such a ruling would not prevent the citizens of Oregon from changing the constitution.
To Bellylaugh:
If you think of Mao as a reference to the failed effort to change how people think through state mandate then it is not too crazy. In that sense Linn is supposed to be responsive to the public rather than falling into the classic trap of overestimating ones own individual influence upon everyone else. Consider if the state says that same-gender couplings are just plain bad -- will you believe them? The state can have lots of power but remains utterly powerless to change how people think.
The overlap of agreement should be the fate of kids.
A childless opposite-gender couple is not more worthy of state support than is a same-gender couple that is raising a kid. If you think of mom staying home to take care of kids then she has incurred a huge opportunity cost by not working. If she does not have kids then she cannot claim any of this lost opportunity. Likewise, if a partner in a same-gender coupling (married or not) stays home to care for a kid they are incurring the very same opportunity cost. I cannot view the state as having any legitimate interest in the manner of coupling (marriage and civil union alike) except to the extent that it also involves kids. If you had listened to Ted you would have heard him note that there was value to a long term relationship in itself, which acknowledges that a sphere of disagreement will be resolved independently of the kids. I find it foolish to ignore the kid issue that really is at the heart of state support of a family unit. The more adults that are on the hook to raise kids the better.
All teens (and pre-teens) already think of their parents as idiots so the orientation of the parents should not matter.