Court urged to strike
down gay marriage ban
By CHARLES E. BEGGS,
AP from OregonLive.com on the Web, September 26, 2005
SALEM, OR. -- The battle over
same-sex marriage shifted to the courts Monday when gay rights activists urged a
judge to throw out a gay marriage ban enacted by Oregon voters last November.
Portland lawyer Mark Johnson, representing the gay rights group Basic Rights
Oregon, said the measure makes at least two and maybe four separate amendments
to the state constitution that should have been voted on separately.
Johnson told Marion County Circuit Judge Joseph Guimond that Measure 36 not only
amends the constitution to forbid same-sex marriage, but also violates local
governments' home rule rights by forbidding them from recognizing gay marriages.
But Charles Fletcher, an assistant attorney general defending the measure, said
voters only clarified marriage law and didn't change it.
"There was no right to same-sex marriage before Measure 36, and there is no
right to same-sex marriage after Measure 36," Fletcher told the judge.
Oregon was among the first states where marriage licenses were issued for
same-sex couples last year.
More than 3,000 licenses were granted before Multnomah County Circuit Judge
Frank Bearden halted the practice. But Bearden also ruled that licenses
issued up to that point were legally valid.
The Oregon Supreme Court in April reversed the lower court on grounds that the
county lacked authority to issue the licenses.
The Defense of Marriage Coalition, the chief opponent to gay marriage, easily
collected enough petition signatures to put the gay marriage ban on the ballot
last November.
The lawsuit challenging the gay marriage ban approved by voters is based only on
technical grounds, not whether same-sex unions should be recognized.
The Defense of Marriage Coalition, however, says the ballot measure approved
last November did only one thing — made clear that laws can constitutionally
limit marriage to opposite-sex couples.
Whatever the fate of the ballot measure, it won't end the effort to grant gay
couples most, if not all, of the benefits of marriage.
The Democrat-run state Senate passed a bill this year to create civil unions
giving same-sex couples many of the rights of marriage. The measure died
in the Republican-controlled House.
Rebekah Kassell, Basic Rights spokeswoman, said the group likely will decide
soon whether to try to put a measure on the November 2006 ballot to create civil
unions.
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