Oregon, two gay rights bills become law

Amid grins and tears, two gay-rights bills become law
By David Steves
The Register-Guard
Published: Thursday, May 10, 2007


SALEM - Gov. Ted Kulongoski did Wednesday what Oregonians in committed, gay relationships hope to do in eight months:

Put pen to paper and make it official.

In the governor's case, the signing involved two new, landmark laws that grant the right to same-sex domestic partnerships and ensure protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The stroke of Kulongoski's pens made Oregon the seventh state to recognize civil unions or domestic partnerships and the 18th to extend anti-discrimination protections to gays and lesbians.

In January, when the domestic partnership law takes effect, Tim Smith and Kent Kullby plan to be among the same-sex couples applying for a "Certificate of Registered Domestic Partnership."

The Eugene couple have been together for 15 years, and spent many of them trying to secure legal recognition for their union. They were the first pair to enter Eugene's domestic partnership registry and in 2004 among the 3,200 same-sex couples to get married when Multnomah County briefly allowed it. The couples were later told their unions weren't legally valid.

And even if the third time is the charm when it comes to moving from symbolic to legally meaningful validation of their union, Smith and Kullby said they don't expect it to be the final chapter.

"We believe in our lifetime we'll be able to get full-on married again," Smith said.

They were among the more than 200 people who gathered on the grounds of the Capitol for all the pomp and ceremony of a bill signing that Kulongoski said represented one of the rare instances when such an act extends beyond the usual "transactional" nature of law-making and serves as a transformational event.

"House Bill 2007 and Senate Bill 2 are two pieces of legislation that will literally transform our state from one of exclusion to one of complete inclusion," he told the cheering crowd.

Kulongoski's staff had arranged a table outside the building's eastern entrance. The governor sat in a high-backed, leather chair and used seven pens, each resting in its own leather case, to sign the bill.

Advocates and beneficiaries of the bills hugged, wiped tears and beamed big grins throughout what many called a historic moment in Oregon.

The event ended with a choral rendition of "America" by the Portland Gay Men's Chorus.

Many of the speakers and dignitaries recognized at the signing had labored in the gay-rights movement years or decades earlier. Among them were former Gov. Barbara Roberts, who led the fight to oppose anti-gay-rights initiatives in the 1990s; Gail Shibley, Oregon's first openly gay legislator; and Terry Bean, a Portland businessman and philanthropist whose gay-rights activism dates back to the 1970s, when he lived in the Eugene area and persuaded the Eugene City Council to pass an ordinance barring discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Bean said the signing of SB 2 and HB 2007 signaled more than the enactment of statutory protection for gays, lesbians and their rights as couples and parents.

"More importantly, I think, is the powerful message to the scared gay kid in Klamath Falls and that frightened young lesbian in Prineville that their state values them and they can be whatever they want to be," he said, "that they can be open and they can be honest about who they are."

Eugene gay-rights activist and writer Sally Sheklow said participating in Wednesday's ceremony and witnessing the signing into law of the two most important bills passed on her movement's behalf exceeded what she ever hoped for when she got involved back in the 1970s. Sheklow recalled canvassing in Eugene during an earlier gay-rights campaign.

"It was like the aliens from Mars were going door to door trying to convince people we were human," she said. "And now, this law that people have been dreaming about has finally arrived."

It's possible either or both laws could be sidetracked by campaigns to gather signatures for a referendum vote. It requires 55,179 valid signatures within 90 days of the Legislature's adjournment for such a vote on the 2008 general election ballot. One group that opposed the two bills, the Oregon Family Council, has said it has no plans for such an effort. But a lower-profile conservative Christian organization, the Lake Oswego-based Restore America, has indicated in e-mails that it wants to petition for a statewide vote to defeat both laws.

Its director, David Crowe, did not return phone calls Wednesday