Registration Of Same-Sex Marriages Temporarily Stayed
Court To Hear Motion For Permanent Stay Pending Appeal
As reported in today's Oregonian, the Oregon Court of Appeals granted the State of Oregon a temporary stay of Judge Frank L. Bearden's order to register the more than 3,000 same-sex marriages conducted in Multnomah County earlier this year:
The court made its decision days before the deadline for the state to begin processing same-sex marriage licenses, but before gay-rights advocates could respond.
A lawyer for the same-sex couples who sued the state over the right to marry said Wednesday that she would oppose the state's attempt to avoid registering same-sex marriage licenses while the case is on appeal.
In a confusingly-dated note from Basic Rights Oregon, we get some further details on the latest step in the ongoing judicial process:
On May 27th, the State of Oregon filed a notice of appeal to Judge Bearden's earlier court decision that it must register the licenses of the more than 3,000 same-sex couples who were married in Oregon. The State of Oregon has also requested a stay pending appeal of the portion of the ruling that requires the State to register those marriage licenses by June 6 (a previous request for a stay was denied by Judge Bearden). On June 3, the Court of Appeals granted the State a temporary stay, which allows it to do nothing regarding the registration of marriages until their motion for a stay pending appeal is heard and decided, which could take a few weeks.
As BRO points out, technically this is not a victory for the State, since the Court has not yet made a determination on a more permanent stay of Bearden's registration order, but merely a procedural decision prior to hearing responses from the other parties to the case.
Also from the BRO update, it seems that they and the ACLU of Oregon have filed a notice of cross-appeal, and will be "asking the court to overturn the portion of Judge Bearden's decision that gives the legislature the option of shunting same-sex couples into civil unions instead of affording them full equality by allowing them to marry."
Under the previous ruling from Bearden, the Oregon Legislature is required to take up the matter of same-sex marriage within 90 days of coming into session. Of course, any potential action from the Oregon Legislature would now be months away, since the once-intended special session recently imploded under Democratic opposition, the absence of the Senate, and lasted for all of something like thirteen minutes.
June 04, 2004 at 12:31 PM
RE: BRO's date error.
b!X, you sure do have good eyes! I've fixed the error on BRO's web site.
Explanation: I coded Basic Rights Oregon's routine weekly news update on their web site on Wed, 6/2, using that dateline, with the plan of issuing it later that day, or early 6/3. Then there was a breaking news addition, as you noted in this Communique report, which I received from BRO staff and inserted without reading, failing to revise the dateline. Mea culpa!
I suppose I've also erred in revising the date after the fact, in violation of the principles that you've adopted [available from link in your left sidebar], and that seem to make great practical sense. I'm looking into adopting them myself in the future.
Thanks for the catch. And keep up the good work!