NEWS

Civil unions get shelved in uncivil House

Friday, July 22, 2005
David Sarasohn
The Oregonian

The day after hundreds of people gathered to ask the Oregon House to vote on a same-sex civil-unions bill -- and the day after legislative counsel explained why civil unions did not violate the gay marriage ban in Measure 36 -- House Speaker Karen Minnis took the Senate-passed bill and threw it deeper into the closet.

After all, you have to be careful about giving people special rights.

Like voting.

It was widely suspected that if the Oregon House ever really got to vote on civil unions, the bill might actually pass the House. Next thing you know, legislators might demand other equal-protection rights -- like knowing what's going on.

Thursday, Senate Bill 1000-A, passed by the Senate 19-10, surfaced in the House State and Federal Affairs Committee, where without testimony it was replaced with a different bill and sent to the House Budget Committee, where no minority reports are permitted. The House actually voting on a proposal for civil unions is as about as likely as the Legislature having a working budget process.

"It's consistent with what the speaker's been saying all along," explained her spokesman, Charles Deister, that the House would vote only on a limited reciprocal benefits bill, not on civil unions. Asked if the House would ever vote on anything at all, he explained, "Undecided."

Wednesday, Minnis, R-Wood Village, told Brad Cain of the Associated Press that Measure 36, a constitutional amendment passed by Oregon voters last year, banned anything like the Senate's civil unions bill. "This issue has been discussed, it's been voted on," the speaker said. Civil unions would be "marriage by another name."

But also on Wednesday, David Heynderickx, acting legislative counsel, offered the opinion, "We believe Senate Bill 1000-A is constitutional as written," that nothing in Measure 36 prevents it and that "differences between a civil union and a marriage show that Senate Bill 1000-A does not create a 'same-sex marriage' under the guise of another name."

Lawyers. What do they know?

This week, the Legislature received another constitutional opinion. In a broad mailing, the Oregon Family Council declared Senate Bill 1000-A "The Most Dangerous Bill Ever" and accused its supporters of "waging an all-out assault on marriage," that "Civil Unions is Gay-Marriage in Disguise" and that with the bill, "gays, bisexuals and even 'drag queens' would have special rights and privileges heterosexual people don't have."

Fortunately, it had an answer: "We know you're grateful for the work we are doing, so don't please don't forget to send your gift of $100, $50, $25 to help with this crucial battle to preserve marriage and family values for our children's future."

They might have to raise the money quickly. The trend of polling in Oregon shows rising support for civil unions and protection of gay families, demonstrated by the heavy support in the Senate.

"This is the civil rights struggle of our generation," says Sen. Ben Westlund, R-Bend, who supported the civil unions bill in the Senate after supporting Measure 36 last November.

Westlund, in fact, thinks Gov. Ted Kulongoski should announce that the Legislature won't be going home until there's a vote on civil unions, and that he will be vetoing things until it happens.

Kulongoski, a strong backer of the bill, doesn't think that would work. "I never give up," he said this week, "but I know that (Minnis) feels strongly about this."

Besides, the only bills that Kulongoski could veto to keep the Legislature from going home would be budgets -- and so far, the Legislature hasn't managed to produce many of those.

The one consolation of the civil unions bill being shoved into a legislative closet is that in this session, it has a lot of company.

Somehow, at some point, Oregonians will get to see an actual decision made on civil unions, a debate about what it actually might mean. But in this limping Legislature, the issue isn't about drag queens or an assault on marriage or about Measure 36.

This isn't about a vote that Oregon had last fall.

It's about a vote that the Oregon House is afraid to have this summer.