PHOTO BY UN DA
aprii 2.1999 » J u s t o u t 21
Carl Kiss (far left) with the Tanner plaintiffs at a press conference in December 1998
Straight ALLIES
Continued from Page 19
Upon composing himself, he called the plain
tiffs, then his wife.
“She cried, too,” he says.
It was— and continues to be— very soul
stirring and personal; re-envisioning the sce
nario three years later draws tears from Kiss.
case he spent nearly eight years working on:
Tanner vs. Oregon Health Sciences University.
Queer community, meet Carl Kiss, a man
who speaks of the pleasures of teaching his 9-
om in 1956, Kiss was raised in a Chicago
year-old daughter, Molly, how to dribble a bas
suburb by parents who engaged themselves
ketball and snare a softball. A man who, after
and their two sons in “active discussions”
14 years of marriage, still gushes when men
around the dinner table. (Kiss’ dad did most of
tioning his writer-editor wife, Lynn Lustberg.
the talking, though.)
Kiss is a Portland-based attorney who pored
Kiss aspired to be an astronaut until the
no fewer than 1,000 hours of labor— and expo sixth grade, when he figured he’d eventually
nentially more via the expenditure of emo
tion— into crafting a legal case that would
eventually lead to a historic
_________
episode.
On Dec. 9, 1998, the Oregon
believe that all
Court of Appeals released the
people are equal, or
Tanner ruling— the first of its
kind in the nation—stipulating
created by God, or
that all state and local govern
however you wish to
ments in Oregon must offer
spousal benefits to the same-sex
phrase it. Why should
domestic partners of their
employees.
we single out and
The ruling stemmed from a
despise people just
lawsuit initiated by three lesbian
employees at Oregon Health Sci
because they're
ences University who claimed
their domestic partners were
different?"
entitled to benefits. The unani
mous three-judge panel said
— Joseph Tam
denying the benefits violated
equal protection provisions of
the Oregon Constitution.
The ruling goes even further. It prohibits
private employers from discriminating on the
basis of sexual orientation in hiring, firing,
promotions and pay— marking the first time
an appellate court has interpreted a statecon-
stitution to prohibit employment discrimina
tion on the basis of sexual orientation.
In playfully simplistic terms, its awesome.
The court’s action snagged some serious
media attention, and spawned a jubilant
exhaustion among those closest to the epi
sw#
center: the six plaintiffs— Christine Tanner,
School
board buddy Joseph Tam
Lisa Chickadonz, Barbara Limandri, Regenia
Phillips, Terrie Lyons and Kathleen Grogan;
sprout too tall. (By eighth grade he had already
Kiss; and Portland attorney Lynn Nakamoto,
reached 6-foot-3.) St) Kiss pondered becoming
whose contributions Kiss warmly cites.
a pediatrician.
The appellate ruling upheld a 1996 trial
“I always loved kids,” he explains. But Kiss
ruling by Multnomah County Circuit Judge
possessed
concerns about a life potentially
Stephen Gallagher, which, when unveiled,
plagued by sleep deficiency— and watching
shtxik Kiss.
cranky
kids in pain and discomfort was hound
“ I cried," he says, recounting the moment
to pose a challenge to someone not inclined to
he learned of Gallagher’s opinion. It was a Sat
squelch
his sensitive ways.
urday, and he received word through the mail.
B
7
So law it was, or as Kiss describes it,
“another means to help people who needed it.”
In fact it was at the New York University
School of Law— in queer-saturated Greenwich
Village— that Kiss became aware of gay folks.
“My last prejudice was against gays and les
bians,” he concedes.
Not a prejudice that manifests itself in an
active, bashing manner, but rather a prejudice
that takes the form of oblivion and disassocia-
tion.
“I didn’t know any openly gay or lesbian
people before I went to NYU,” he explains.
And so a new world was revealed. He learned
of gay and lesbian students who opted for
NYU over the more prestigious institutions of
Harvard and Yale in order “to find that sense
of acceptance and family.”
It was a revelation, says Kiss, to see the
lengths gay men and lesbians traveled to attain
that connection.
A W ell -R ouped
E ducation
Jo sep h T am and Marc Abrams
have shaped the Portland
school board's gay-friendly
policies
by
P atrick C ollins
t’s important that queers have allies at the
White House, the U.S. Capitol, and in the
legislative halls closer to home. But it seems
equally important to have allies seated at the
table of another body of decision-makers: local
school boards.
In Portland, two such individuals stand out.
Both Marc Abrams and Joseph Tam are
straight, married, and have children who
iss estimates roughly 25 attorneys turned
attend Portland public schools. Both work in
down the Tanner plaintiffs before he took on professions that require a degree of advocacy,
the case. Perhaps those esquires were over
or at least empathy: Tam as an investigator in
worked, unenthused, or believed the plaintiffs
the civil rights division of the state Bureau of
were cradling a lost cause. After all, no matter
Labor and Industries; Abrams as an employ
how cogent the argument before them, judges
ment attorney.
traditionally balk at “going where no judge has
And each has stuck his neck out on behalf
gone before,” as Kiss puts it.
of the queer community, and not, say both,
And when it comes to sexual orientation
because of any personal connection to the
issues and the law, we’re talking about massive issue, but because of a foundation of ideals
ly unexplored terrain.
each acquired early in life.
But Kiss saw something else: “This was the
Once on the school hoard, Tam helped
type of case you go to law school for.” The rare
form a sexual minority parents advisory group;
Abrams spearheaded what eventually became
a Portland Public Schools policy forbidding
military recruiters on school property due to
the military’s discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t
tell” policy.
Tam’s awareness sprouted halfway around
the globe, in Hong Kong, where he grew up.
“When I was growing up, Hong Kong was
99 percent Chinese, so I wasn’t exposed to a
lot of other cultures,” recalls Tam, who immi
grated to the United States in 1972. “ But I’ve
always had an innate desire to learn. I remem
ber looking at the globe as a kid, identifying
where Hong Kong was, and then looking
across the ocean and several time zones at this
place called America and wondering how peo
ple live over there.”
For Abrams, who grew up in New York
City in what he describes as an activist house
hold, the mere notion of not integrating other
cultures into his world vision wasn’t even an
option.
“I grew up in a family where you walk the
talk, period,” he says, adding that both his
grandparents were union organizers and that
his father served for many years as the treasurer
of Amnesty International.
For Abrams, the family’s agitation gene
took him in a different direction. In 1981 he
earned a dual master’s degree from the Univer
sity of Michigan in journalism and law, and
from 1983 to 1985 he directed the Student
Press Law Center in Washington, D.C.
"I could very well he the only school board
member in America who once earned a living
suing school hoards,” he notes.
In 1988 Abrams moved to Portland so that
find that offers an attorney the chance not
his wife, Barb, could take a position with the
only to help the people he or she represents,
Oregon Historical Society, of which she is now
hut also to transform the legal landscape, and
deputy director.
maybe even culture.
Not one to sit still for long, Abrams has
Kiss, a solo practitioner, hunkered down;
since racked up an impressive list of accom
nearly a decade later, the legal landscape— and
plishments. In 1991-92 he served as president
maybe even culture— is a little more gay-
of his neighborhood association. In 1992 he
friendly.
K
Continued on Page 23
1