Democracy for Vancouver

With the fundies’ latest baseless court challenge down the drain, domestic partnerships are a reality in Oregon as of today:

“We won this case on the merits,” said Jeana Frazzini, Executive Director of Basic Rights Oregon. “But the real winners today are the thousands of caring, committed couples who will have access to the rights and responsibilities of domestic partnership.” Basic Rights Oregon had intervened in the case to assist the state in defending the law.

Judge Michael Mosman ruled at 4:25 PM today that opponents of domestic partnership did, indeed, fail to gather the necessary signatures to place the law on the ballot for referendum. “Today the court validated what we’ve known all along - that the support for domestic partnerships in Oregon is strong, and these out-of-state anti-gay groups were trying to cheat Oregon’s election system because they failed,” said Frazzini.

The law takes effect immediately, so county offices will begin to issue domestic partnerships on Monday morning at 9 AM. While domestic partnerships fall short of full marriage rights, they do provide important protections like hospital visitation rights, the ability to make medical decisions for an ailing partner, and estate inheritance.

Congratulations to R. and J., and to all the others who were kicked in the teeth by Judge Mossman’s last minute stay of Oregon’s domestic partnership law on December 31.
Of course, the battle isn’t over; the neolithic homophobes will appeal, and appeal, and appeal - and then move on to the next state once they’ve lost in Oregon:

Today’s ruling, however, is not likely to bring a close to the battle. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a right-wing group who files anti-gay and anti-choice lawsuits around the country and who filed the Oregon suit, has said they will appeal the ruling.

And in New York:

A New York appellate court ruled Friday that valid out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples must be legally recognized in New York, just as the law recognizes those of heterosexual couples solemnized elsewhere. Lawyers for both sides said the ruling applied to all public and private employers in the state.

Even though gay couples may not legally marry in New York, the appellate court in Rochester held that a gay couple’s 2004 marriage in Canada must be respected under the state’s longstanding “marriage recognition rule,” and that an employer’s denial of health benefits had discriminated against the couple on the basis of their sexual orientation.

“The Legislature may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad,” a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ruled unanimously in rejecting a 2006 lower court decision. “Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York.”

For more than a century, the court noted, New York State has recognized valid out-of-state marriages. Moreover, it said that the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest judicial body, has said the Legislature may enact laws recognizing same-sex marriages. “In our view, the Court of Appeals thereby indicated that the recognition of plaintiff’s marriage is not against the public policy of New York,” the court held.
…
Jeffrey Wicks, a lawyer who represents the plaintiff, Patricia Martinez, said that New York had recognized common-law marriages, even marriages of closely related people that might not be allowed in the state. “There’s a long tradition in New York of recognizing marriages that couldn’t be performed in New York,” he said.

We’re moving in the right direction at last.

I know that the GOP thugs will use these two decisions to hammer Democratic candidates and Democratic ideals of privacy and equality, but with the war and the economy, I don’t think that the hysterical “beware the gay!” message is going to work this time (at least not among Democratic or McCain/Romney voters - Huckabees’ fellow squirrel eaters can’t be swayed any further to the right anyway).