The War Within
by Bonnie Tinker
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How many times have you been married - not to different people, but to the same person? Some lesbian and gay couples have been married to the same person three or four times, as well as registering as “domestic partners” a time or two. But the real goal, equal legal recognition of our marriages, still eludes us in Oregon.
After a failed run on marriage licenses in Multnomah County in March 2004, a bitter loss at the polls in November 2004 when a constitutional amendment was passed limiting legal marriage to “one man and one woman,” and growing recognition that the separate “domestic partnerships” created through the “Family Fairness act of 2006” are simply not equal, we are ready to fight for full marriage equality.
Basic Rights Oregon now says that it will be ready to put a pro-active marriage equality measure on the ballot in 2012, but that is not soon enough for some people. Another group, the Equality Now campaign, is circulating petitions to put a measure on the 2010 ballot that they say will provide full marriage equality. As of May 1, 600 of the needed 1000 signatures needed to request a ballot title, had been gathered.
The measure they are proposing reads:
“Article XV, Section 5a. Policy regarding marriage. It is the policy of Oregon, and its political subdivisions, that domestic partnerships (OR 99.3 2007) shall be legally recognized as marriage.”
While I applaud the intentions behind this effort, I think it’s best to leave domestic partnerships out of the Oregon Constitution. I could barely stand the idea of creating a separate status, “domestic partnerships” for lesbians and gays when the “Family Fairness Act” was passed. I cannot abide the idea of writing “separate but equal” into the Oregon Constitution. If a domestic partnership is the same thing as a marriage, then just give me the marriage, thank-you.
Fortunately, Sal Peralta, organizer for Full Equality (www.fullequality.org) assures me that they really do want full equality and they are open to changing the language of their petition. They came up with the wording they have after consultation that considered how to both undo measure 36 and write equality into the constitution.
Figuring out how to undo the discrimination with just one ballot measure is a bit of a challenge. Oregon ballot measures can do only one thing at a time. Thus you can’t both repeal measure 36, now known as Article XV, Section 5a, and change the marriage statute to include same sex couples with the same measure. Passing any ballot measure with a “Yes” vote is difficult to begin with; attempting to pass two at the same time is very risky.
So it appears the first question is: How do we get full equality with just one simple change, which must be a constitutional change because of measure 36?
I imagine there are lots of good ideas about how to do this. Off the top of my head I don’t see why we don’t just amend Article XV section 5a to read: Marriage is a civil right granted to two adults and shall not be denied or abridged based on the race, creed, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity of either of the parties to be married. I’m sure there are a lot of other good ideas, including those from lawyers and lawmakers who know more about the anatomy of legal language than I do, and from people who know how to write and speak in plain language. I’m sure if we put our heads together we can come up with something that says what we want in a way that people can hear it and accept equality.
But I don’t think the language of a new ballot measure is our biggest challenge. I’d like to propose a new first question: How do we get equality supporters from across the state, from diverse communities, from a variety of grassroots groups and from churches and other faith communities together to agree upon a strategy and a timeline? That kind of coalition work disappeared from the LGBT movement in Oregon when one organization became powerful enough to simply design a strategy and then let others know what the plan was and how they could support it.
Now we have another player, Full Equality, that has a different plan and, like BRO, enough money to simply make a plan and implement it. Both groups say they are ready to cooperate in building a grassroots movement that can work in a collaborative fashion to do what no other state has ever done -- vote in equal rights for a minority group.
I believe we can win the hearts and minds of our fellow Oregonians and win marriage equality through a vote, but we will have to take a risk and trust one another, to set each other free to speak our own truth. A get-out-the-vote strategy can win if the votes are there and all you have to do is get the ballots mailed in to be counted. We don’t have that luxury. Social change requires change. Change requires openness. You can’t make anybody change; they have to do it for themselves. What we can do is share our families’ stories; share the way love shapes our lives. We can open our own hearts to those who do not yet know us and trust that our shared belief in justice will eventually overcome generations of fear.
We can start by opening our hearts to one another. We are weary from the weight of discrimination. We are anxious about our changing and endangered world. And we are also strong. We are defined by our love, and there is no force more powerful.
While I disagree with the initial language proposed by Full Equality, I am grateful that they are ready to try to do something. And I am grateful that Basic Rights Oregon is ready to invest in public education and coalition building. There are probably at least a hundred other grassroots groups in Oregon ready to work for marriage equality. Let’s move forward together.
As Susan B Anthony said, “Failure is Impossible.”
Bonnie Tinker is the Executive Director of Love Makes a Family, Inc. She has been married to her spouse, Sara Since August, 1977 and working for marriage equality for over 25 years.
