Oregon Family Council Loses Fight To Retitle Marriage Equality Initiative

Marriage equality is on the move in Oregon, and the anti-equality folks just got a court-issued smackdown in the matter.

It seems that the Oregon Family Council [OFC]--does it strike anyone else as odd, and somewhat bigoted, that most every anti-LGBT group uses the word family in its name, as if to say The Gays don't come from, or have, families?--wanted to rewrite the title of the proposed ballot measure to say the, if passed, every single government agency in Oregon would be required to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. trouble is, that argument, like most of the arguments these 'family' groups out forth, is a big fat lie. And the attorney general isn't buying it, and so, last week, they rejected the OFC's argument outright.

Basic Rights Oregon, the LGBT-rights group sponsoring the marriage equality initiative, calls the OFC complaint 'absurd' and says that even when the initiative passes--and please be assured it will pass--county clerks would continue to be the only ones issuing marriage licenses.

This is just another attempt by one of those so-called 'family' groups to instill fear in the public; to try and confuse people when the whole thing is simple: if you want all Oregonians to be able to marry, then you'll vote for it. And the only change to any law will be that same-0sex couples are now treated equally throughout the state.

Every other argument, threat, assumption, put forth by the OFC is a blatant lie.

Jeff Payne, an assistant attorney general, said that even if the OFC argument were, in fact, true, the idea of requiring officials other than county clerks to issue marriage licenses is a secondary effect of the measure, not the subject of the measure, and therefore should not be included in the title.

Payne did agree that the ballot title should be changed to reflect some of the objections made by Basic Rights Oregon; there are actually two versions of the initiative right now, though just one will be on the ballot, and the final ballot title issued by the attorney general's office is identical for both versions:

Amends Constitution: Recognizes marriage between couples of same gender; protects clergy/religious institutions' refusal to perform marriages

Pretty simple. Same-sex couples have the right to marry, while churches and clergy will not be forced to perform a same-sex ceremony if they so choose.

And yet the Oregon Family Council wants to play semantics in the hopes that the voters will find something shady in the bill and vote against it.

It's simple: do all Oregonians have the same rights on the issue of marriage?

Yes, they do. But this argument, and other arguments, but the OFC will rage on until this comes up for a vote which probably won't happen until November 2014.

But, by then, with the way more and more Americans are changing their minds on the subject, it should be a slam-dunk for equality.

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