Gay rights took one step forward in Oregon yesterday when Judge Eric Bloch ruled that state parental rights laws violate the constitution. The laws stated that only a married couple can legally register as a child’s parents. Jean Frazzini and K.D. Parman, a lesbian couple who have a four year old, artificially inseminated child, filed a lawsuit after the hospital refused to include Frazzini’s name on the baby’s birth certificate.
In filing their suit, the litigious ladies referenced 1998’s Tanner v. OHSU, which wrote that married straights cannot have rights while gays’ languish. Judge Bloch agreed and declared yesterday that Oregon’s current parenting rights laws violate the womens’ – and other gays’ – rights. He did not, however, issue an order for the laws to be changed.
Rather, Bloch’s putting his eggs in Oregon’s domestic partnership bill basket.
Scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2008, the domestic partner law will hopefully bring gays into line with their straight peers. Unfortunately, the anti-equality, anti-gay activists are already gearing up to dismantle the bill, which they fear grants gays special rights. Executive direcotr of Basic Rights Oregon, John Hummell, says Bloch’s decision “validates” the case for domestic partnerships:
This decision is a tremendous win for children, for families, and for our shared Oregon value of basic fairness. It validates the need for Oregon’s new Domestic Partnership law to be implemented – not unnecessarily delayed or overturned by a referendum vote.
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Oregon’s Domestic Partnership law must be allowed to go into effect on January 1st, 2008 – without delay… as required by Oregon’s constitution, and for the sake of Oregon’s children and families.
Unfortunately, the religious right and other fundamentalists don’t view gay families as families. They’re sinful brethren who must be destroyed. Luckily, Oregon’s judicial, legislative and executive branches are all aligned against their misguided politics – and the law.
How about we take this to the next level?
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