U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman’s ruling last Friday comes as welcome news. The ruling threw out a lawsuit petitioning the court to block a domestic partnership bill from becoming law back in January.
The group that filed the petition is the Alliance Defense Fund. Though the ADF states the lawsuit was based on the alleged misrepresentation of voters on the petition to block the partnership law, consensus among analysts was that the Christian-advocacy group based out of Arizona was merely trying to inject itself into Oregon’s domestic partnership issue.
But Judge Mosman’s dismissal of the ADF’s petition lawsuit opens the door for gay couples seeking legal domestic partnerships. Starting today, couples can register for partnership licenses at their local county offices. The ruling is new precedent for a state that, in 2004, passed a constitutional amendment declaring legal marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The social climate has changed considerably since then. The public now seems ready to grant those rights to homosexuals that they were reluctant to do just four years earlier.
It is nothing less than a civil rights issue to grant gay couples property and inheritance rights, authority over medical decisions, and the ability to file for child support in the event of a legal separation. These are basic and inalienable rights. And yet, they will only apply to same-sex couples in Oregon so long as they remain in Oregon. The federal government still does not recognize same-sex unions.
We understand the weight of this issue. It is contentious, and has drawn heated debate from both sides. Much of the opposition to gay marriage laws stems from moral or religious conflict. Such sentiments must be respected in a society that considers itself a truly tolerant one. But we also feel it is a fundamental matter of individual rights and responsibility for a man or a woman to be with the man or woman they love. Anything less is a conscious denial of rights to an individual by the state.
In New York, a ruling on Friday by the appellate court decided same-sex unions recognized where they were granted must also be recognized by the state of New York. Hopefully, this is the first step in a national trend that will one day culminate in the acceptance of gay couples as being on equal grounds with any other. The ADF has pledged to appeal Judge Mosman’s ruling. And while no one, not even the couples celebrating their newly recognized domestic partnerships, expects this to be the end of the fight, Friday’s rulings here and in New York are two strong steps in the right direction.