A federal judge in Portland has concluded the state of Oregon doesn’t need to count all of the signatures on a petition proposing a vote of the people on a state law to create same-sex domestic partnerships with rights and privileges identical to marriage couples.
U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman in December granted a temporary injunction requested by lawyers for the Alliance Defense Fund, who argued the state illegally disenfranchised registered voters who signed petitions to bring the issue before voters, but were improperly rejected by county officials.
But Mosman now has lifted his earlier order, allowing the state law to take effect immediately, concluding that the state has little significant obligation to count voters’ signatures on that petition. His ruling came at the end of a hearing on Friday.
Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the ADF, called it “un-America” that Oregonians were being denied the right to have their votes counted.
“Our country is founded on the basic principle of government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” he said of the dispute.
The organization had sued on behalf of several state residents in different counties after the secretary of state and clerks’ offices in 12 counties invalidated their petition signatures for a referendum that would allow voters to decide, again, whether they in fact approve of “civil unions.”
The ADF said it now is reviewing its options for appeal.
“The judge stated that voters in Oregon have no legal right to have their petition signatures counted,” the organization said.
“In America, every citizen’s voice counts,” Nimocks said. “Government bureaucrats cannot decide what is best for the people of Oregon.”
The signatures in question were on petitions to bring the plan approved by the legislature and signed by the governor to create institutions that effectively are same-sex marriages to a vote of the people of Oregon, who had rejected such plans earlier.
“Their signatures were genuine and no legitimate reason existed to refuse to allow these registered voters to participate in the democratic process,” Nimocks said.
The ADF had submitted briefs in the case showing that county clerks simply refused petition signers’ requests to count their signatures after they had been “wrongfully rejected.”
The petition signature total fell just five short of what was needed in Oregon to put the issue to voters, prompting the proponents to seek a review.
“The right to exercise one’s voice in the democratic process is a crucial one, and state and county officials must not infringe upon that right,” Nimocks said.
The ADF’s brief concluded, “The only real dispute in this case is whether the Secretary of State and county clerks can constitutionally refuse to give excluded signers notice that their signatures have been rejected and refuse to give them any opportunity – even when they learn of the disenfranchisement on their own – to verify their signatures and make sure that their vote counts.”
The Associated Press reported that advocates for legitimizing same-sex “couples,” were “beaming.”
“We’re a family. We’ve been waiting for this a long time,” the wire service reported Cathy Kravitz of Portland celebrating.
The judge’s ruling concluded signatures on a petition “call for an election, not a substitution for an election.”
Homosexuals who registered now with the state will be granted permission to file joint state tax returns, inherit each other’s property and other provisions ordinarily reserved for married couples.
The issue in question already had been rejected soundly by voters in Oregon. In 2004, several thousand same-sex couples were given marriage licenses in Multnomah County, prompting Oregonians to approve by a 57-43 percent margin a constitutional ban on homosexual marriages. A court nullified the licenses.
That aligned with 148 years of precedent in the state. However, 54 legislators in the statehouse during 2007 and Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski ignored that, working together on the new homosexual couples proposal.
They even included a section in a new law suggesting schools address the “attitudes” of those who do not choose to support those relationships.
When the petition signatures total was announced, signers had sought, personally, to affirm their signatures in order to overcome the publicized referendum deficit of five names, but they were rejected by county officials.
The state already has begun implementation of the new law, with plans confirmed by prison officials to allow inmates who are part of a domestic partnership to live in the same prison facility, and in the same unit, a privilege specifically denied married inmates.
“The problem I have with this is that the department will not allow heterosexual inmates who are married to live together in the same institution or on the same housing unit,” said one state Department of Corrections employee, whose name was being withheld from publication.
“The new policy gives homosexual RDP inmates the special privilege of living together but denies it for heterosexual married inmates, just the opposite of what the policy is trying to achieve, and discriminates against heterosexuals based on their sexual orientation,” the employee continued.
“Not only is this a discriminatory policy but it will be an enforcement nightmare for correctional staff. If the RDP inmates are allowed to live on the same housing unit, are we going to allow them to shower together or … let them sleep next to each other? And if we don’t allow them to do those things will we be sued for discrimination because of their sexual orientation? The whole thing is just nuts!” the employee said.
In a column on the issue, Alan Sears, chief of the ADF, noted that the issue of marriage consisting of – and only of – one man and one woman is supported overwhelmingly in the United States. Twenty-seven of 28 states where voters have decided the question, they have limited marriage to one man and one woman.
“Those seeking to fabricate same-sex ‘marriage’ have long recognized the American public is a roadblock to their success. In 1998, after ADF-allied litigation allowed Alaska citizens to vote on (and pass) a constitutional amendment barring same-sex unions, the ACLU executive director declared: ‘Today’s results prove that certain fundamental issues should not be left up to a majority vote.’
“When the (new) referendum was submitted to the Oregon Secretary of State on Sept. 26, signatures exceeded the required number by more than 6,000. However, the Secretary of State announced there were not enough signatures to sustain the referendum. The evaluated ‘sample’ was said to be only five signatures short. If you wonder how this could happen, you aren’t alone. As it turns out, there is a very clear explanation – many of the signatures were wrongfully rejected,” Sears said.
“Signatures were invalidated for allegedly not matching their voter registration cards, being illegible, or coming from unregistered voters. But according to ADF attorneys who examined the signatures, several of those kicked out did match, were legible, and the affected voters actually were registered. In other words, many valid signers were ignored,” he continued.
Clerks have “adamantly”‘ resisted efforts by signers to authenticate their signatures. “One county clerk even told a rejected signer, in person, and to their face, ‘tough nuggets,'” Sears said.
Bill Burgess, the clerk in Marion County, confirmed the state had given county clerks instructions to follow a “precedent” and not correct any incorrectly classified signatures they may have been told about.
“We also have a legal obligation to follow the guidelines and precedents of the past and our attorney has told us, and the Secretary of State has advised us that there is no place in this petition signature checking process for a person to come in later on and attest that that was their signature,” he told WND.
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