Court determines: No fall vote on gay rights law

PORTLAND — Any hope that evangelical Christians groups had of a statewide vote taking place this fall on overturning one of Oregon’s new gay rights laws ended last month.
    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Aug. 14 upheld a district court decision rejecting arguments that a vote should be held on a referendum concerning the state’s domestic partnership law.
    The Christian groups believe the law, which went into effect earlier this year, violates the state’s marriage amendment. About 2,200 couples have registered for domestic partnerships in Oregon since the law took effect
The case focused on petition signatures that had been gathered last summer, largely through churches, Christian networks and at Christian events.
Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian legal action agency, had filed a lawsuit on Dec. 3 on behalf of several Oregon voters after the secretary of state and several different county clerks invalidated their petition signatures to place the referendum on the November ballot.
    The appeals court decision angered representatives of the Christian groups, and delighted homosexual advocacy groups.
    “In America, every citizen’s vote should count. The court has tossed aside one of the most important rights we have as Americans,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Austin Nimocks. “Oregon voters deserve to be heard on this referendum. More than enough Oregonians signed the petitions for it. The people didn’t thwart this effort; government bureaucracy did.
   “That is a dangerous precedent for the future of the democratic process in America.”
    David Crowe of Concerned Oregonians, one of the Christian groups that sponsored the petition drive, wrote in an Aug. 15 e-mail to supporters that “Oregon’s citizens have lost again to a corrupt and partisan political agenda that extends into state and federal judiciary ... Liberal activist ‘boss’ judges, under the cover and art of ‘law,’ have become the new culture gods, lording it over the people — a prescription for disaster for Constitutional government of by and for the people.”
    “This decision is a victory for commitment. It is a victory for love,” Jeana Frazzini, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, stated on her agency’s website. “Most Oregonians agree that committed couples should have the legal recognition they need to take care of each other. And now two courts have rejected our opponents’ demands for special treatment.”
    H.B. 2007 provides many of the legal benefits of marriage to unmarried, same-sex couples who register with the state. On Dec. 28, the U.S. District Court for Oregon granted ADF attorneys’ request to prevent the bill from going into effect while their lawsuit over the invalidated petition signatures went forward.
    ADF attorneys then requested that the court make its preliminary injunction permanent, but on Feb. 1, the judge refused and lifted the injunction, stating that Oregon voters had no legal right to have their petition signatures counted. ADF attorneys appealed that decision to the 9th Circuit The 9th Circuit’s opinion in Lemons v. Bradbury is available at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/LemonsOpinion.pdf.
    Crowe’s group has indicated petitioning will likely be resumed for a 2010 vote to repeal both the domestic partnership law and another new law that bans discrimination against homosexuals in work, housing and public places.