Oregon's same-sex couples await Jan. 1 domestic partners law

SALEM, Ore. — Kelly Burke remembers well the day in 2004 when she and her partner gathered with hundreds of other same-sex couples in Portland's Keller Auditorium to exchange wedding vows — unions made possible by Multnomah County's move to legalize gay marriage.

"People were racing across town to get married," Burke remembers. "Here was a moment in history where marriage was finally available to us. No one knew if it was going to be shut down in an hour or how long it was going to last."

It lasted about six weeks until a judge ruled that there was no right to gay marriage under state law, thus invalidating 3,000 marriage licenses issued to gay and lesbian couples.

On Jan. 1 Burke and her partner of nearly 20 years, Dolores Doyle, will be able to gain official recognition of their relationship under a new state law that will allow them to register as domestic partners.

It's a step in the right direction, they said, and it will take some of the sting out of having their marriage license invalidated.

"But I don't know if we're going to rush right down" to register as domestic partners, Doyle said. "It doesn't hold the same weight as marriage. There isn't the same sense of urgency around this."

Oregon will join eight states that have approved spousal rights in some form for gay couples — Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maine, California, Washington and Hawaii. Massachusetts is the only state that allows gay couples to marry.

Another Oregon law taking effect that day will outlaw discrimination in housing, jobs and public accommodations based on sexual orientation. Oregon will be one of 18 states with such a law.

Oregon's domestic partners law covers benefits related to inheritance rights, child-rearing and custody, joint state tax filings, joint health, auto and homeowners insurance policies, visitation rights at hospitals and others. It does not affect federal benefits for married couples, including Social Security and joint filing of federal tax returns.

A national gay rights advocacy group said Oregon's law is one of the strongest of the spousal rights laws enacted so far.

"When a state like Oregon passes a law like this, it's a very hopeful step," said Chris Edelson of the Human Rights Campaign in New York. "Our hope is that Oregon and other states will soon join Massachusetts" in legalizing gay marriage.

Opponents of Oregon's two new gay rights laws recently failed in their attempt to round up enough valid signatures to block the measures from taking effect.

One of the leaders of that effort, former state Sen. Marylin Shannon, said opponents aren't giving up. Shannon and other social conservatives contend the domestic partners law, in particular, violates the intent of voters who in 2004 adopted a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Shannon said opponents plan to file measures in January to place a repeal of both new laws on the November 2008 ballot and that opponents might seek to retroactively repeal the domestic partners law, voiding any such partnerships registered between January and November 2008.

"We're going to repeal it as much as possible," the Brooks Republican said.

The executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, the state's largest gay rights group, said lawyers have told him they doubt that a repeal measure could invalidate domestic partnerships already granted under state law.

Besides, John Hummel said, the opponents couldn't muster the signatures needed to refer the two measures to a statewide vote so it's not at all certain they could gather an even larger number needed to place repeal measures on the 2008 ballot.

"People were not buying what they were selling," Hummel said of the opponents.

One recent study estimated there are about 11,000 same-sex couples in Oregon, although Hummel said he's not sure how many may register as domestic partners.

One indication could be the 3,000 couples who obtained marriage licenses in Multnomah County in 2004 — about half of whom were from Portland and the rest from other parts of the state, Hummel said.

While it's not a scientific measurement, he said, more than 400 people who have taken part in an online survey at the Basic Rights Oregon Internet site said they and their partner plan to take advantage of the new domestic partners law.

"I don't think there will be the real intensity you saw during that brief period when marriage was available" to same-sex couples in Multnomah County, he said. "But there is still significant interest in this on the part of gay and lesbian couples."