Initiative try to counter

new gay rights law likely

By JOHN FORTMEYER
CNNW publisher
    SALEM — Although it includes the religious exemption many of Oregon’s Christians sought vigorously sought in recent weeks, the state’s new gay rights law is still likely to face a voter initiative challenge from at least one evangelical group.
     The Portland-based Oregon Family Council — which through its affiliate, the Defense of Marriage Council, in 2004 spearhea-ded the successful initiative to ban same-sex marriage in the state — was still debating at press time whether to pursue another statewide initiative to try to overturn the gay rights law passed by the Legislature April 19.
     But even if it doesn’t, the Lake Oswego-based activist group Restore America is highly likely to do so, according to its executive director, David Crowe.
    “I don’t know that we have the option not to do it,” Crowe said. “Restore America is out there telling the Christian community that we (all) ought to be involved in the political process. And yet we have issues in our own backyard that are trying to change the moral equation. It’s moral upheaval, is what it is. And we’re going to sit back and say we don’t want to get engaged?”
     While the last-minute religious exemption was “a vast improvement” for which he is thankful, Crowe said the newly passed legislation is still not acceptable morally.
    “It still stinks,” he said.
    Nick Graham, spokes-man for Oregon Family Council, said there is no question that the new law remains a deep concern for the evangelical Christian community, but whether a voter referendum is wise to pursue was being discussed by the church pastors who advise the council. They met on April 20 and were likely to make an announcement several days later, he said.
    “Certainly the bill is a bad bill, bad public policy, but running a referendum is a big deal,” said Graham. He said an initiative effort would need support from a broad representation of churches as well as heavy financial support.
    “We would be facing a multimillion dollar campaign,” he said. “Every-thing we do as an organization, we analyze all the potential outcomes, because elections are never guaranteed. You better believe that there would be millions of dollars pumped in to the other side of the campaign by the gay rights lobby.”
     At press time, the Senate was soon to take up a related bill, HB 2007, which would give gays and lesbian couples the benefits of marriage by creating legal domestic partnership contracts. It passed the House by a 34-26 vote and also was expected to pass the Senate and be signed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
    Supporters of the newly passed gay rights law — which grants minority rights to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals and protects them from discrimination in housing, work and public places — hailed it as a landmark victory 34 years in the making. Oregon is the 18th state to adopt such a law.
     But evangelicals who opposed the new law — and who turned out by the hundreds in recent weeks to lobby and testify against it at the State Capitol — saw the bill as originally written to be a serious threat to religious freedom, including Christians’ right to teach children how to make moral distinctions. They also claimed it would lead to “hate speech” legislation to muffle all dissent, mandate changes in education that directly contradict the nation’s traditional morality, and require teaching of homosexuality as a legitimate, alternative lifestyle to children in public schools.
     Graham said Oregon Family Council was “satisfied at about the 90 percent level” with the religious exemption, designed to protect churches and parachurch organizations. He said its inclusion in the new law was clearly the result of a turnout of about 500 pastors from across the state who met in Salem and lobbied energetically in the Capitol April 5, in an effort arranged by the council.
     The following Monday, April 9, also saw hundreds of concerned evangelicals turning out at the Capitol to provide often-emotional testimony, and another huge group met April 16 at the Capitol to protest the law’s likely passage.
    “This discussion would not have happened, had not Christians and other concerned Oregonians turned out full-force to express their concerns about the bill, particularly regarding religious freedoms,” said Graham.
     But even national Christian groups are weighing in with their overall dismay about the new law.
    “Although churches and religious groups are exempt from the rule, the push to grant special recognition on the grounds of a person’s sexual behavior is deeply unwise,” said a statement from the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council about the activity in Oregon.
    Under Oregon law, once the governor signs a new law, citizens have a 90-day window to collect signatures for a possible statewide vote to overturn it..
     A total of 55,179 signatures would be required to place such a measure on the ballot of the next general election, in November 2008.