Blogging for LGBT Families

For the most part, I feel really lucky when it comes to being accepted in my community. I live in a liberal city that has a high concentration of lesbians, both of our jobs offer domestic partner benefits, the second parent adoptions of our children were quite easy, and we seem to blend right in. But that's mostly while we are in the city. It's interesting (and irritating) to drive south on I-5 towards our state capital of Salem during election times because all the way down, you read signs that promote the anti-gay initiatives and the ultra-conservative candidates of the day. You realize that your own protective little bubble is only so big.

Oregon has had at least 4 anti-gay initiatives on the ballot since I came out in 1992. Only 1 has passed, the "defense of marriage" one of 2004 that nullified our "legal" marriage from March of that year. Polls from that time showed that the majority of Oregonians supported some type of legal recognition for same sex couples, but many weren't comfortable with the word "marriage". I watched many a debate in which the sanctimonious "loving" opponents to gay marriage stated that they "would certainly support" legal recognition and rights for gay families. Even though we lost the election, I was quite encouraged by the fact that some 46% of Oregonians or so were already comfortable with the word marriage. Since the whole idea of using the word "gay" and "marriage" in one sentence was quite new to people at the time, I thought that was a staggering amount of support.

So the next move was to try to get some marriage equality measures going through the Oregon legislature. They would make it through the Oregon senate, but then Oregon House leader Karen Minnis wouldn't even bring the measures to the floor. All we kept hearing was "the people have already spoken on this". Blah blah blah.

Then came the miracle of last November. That election sang through nationally like a breath of fresh air, and in the state of Oregon here too (bye bye Minnis). The new House and Senate didn't waste much time, quickly passing a new gay anti-discrimination bill and a domestic partnership bill that were both originally meant to come into effect January 1, 2008. Now it looks like that will be unlikely because signature gatherers are already out there trying to stop this outrage. "The people have spoken!!!" they claim. Yeah right. I have a lot of confidence that Oregonians will come through and support these domestic partnerships, but in the meantime, we will have to wait for the people to vote, which won't happen until November of 2008. So our promise of basic fairness is getting pushed back a bit further. Still, I can't complain too much, as I know that what we have here is really quite good compared to other places. I just can't wait for legal recognition of same-sex couples to make it's way around the country and finally reach the federal level.

(Edited to add: I guess the signature gatherers are not actually out there yet because they have to wait, but there is little doubt that they will be able to get the 55,000 or so that they need through the usual conservative outlets.)