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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 20, 2005)
6 just OUt ’ may 2D. 2005 5f35?T3out Continued from Page 4 A Elise Campbell, gri , abr It's that Simple! Home Selling Tip #4 Call Today! 503-307-1353 EliseC(n CompassRealty.com www.EhseCampbell.com If you have moved before, you know the energy it takes preparing for showings, keeping the home clean, coordinating care for kids and pets and altering your lifestyle. Proper pricing reduces these demands on you by helping your home sell faster, ( all me so I can help you price your home correctly. D avid W. O wens P.C. & ASSOCIATES the community since 1975 serving A ttorneys at L aw Serving Oregon & Washington 503°224°3100 ❖ FAMILY LAW • Domestic Partnerships • Formation & Dissolution • Adoptions ❖ WILLS & TRUSTS • Probate & Trusts • Conservatorships & Guardianships • Advance Directives • Divorce & Visitation ❖ REAL ESTATE • Home Purchase Reviews ❖ BANKRUPTCY • Advising Businesses & Individuals ❖ SOCIAL SECURITY ❖ BUSINESS FORMATION & LITIGATION • Corporations, Partnerships, LLCs & LLPs • Commercial Collections of large accounts jn ZZZ F urniture S t . • 503-233-2900 SHOWROOM FURNITURE WITH WAREHOUSE PRICING RIGHT UNDER THE HAWTHORNE BRIDGE AT THE CORNER OF 2ND AND SE MADISON. LOOKING FOR LOYAL CUSTOMERS? For information on how to establish your business identity with Just Out readers, contact Cshea Walker at 503-236-1253 #25. L ee C oleman Aloha P eter S haw Send your marriage money to BRO Portland To the E ditor : ❖ TAX ISSUES & APPEALS www.owens-law.com • 101 SW MAIN, SUITE 700 • Portland, Oregon 97204 • Parking Validated national Perhaps I am missing some subtle irony on Tsien’s part, but crediting John Paul II and Rea gan with liberating much of the world is wrong. For one brutal example not precisely within the scope of your publication, just take a look at Latin America. The liberation theology move ments there were helping the people take the words of Jesus not just as matters of meditation, but as guides for actions that would help create a more just society. Latin Americans began hav ing crazy ideas like believing that they should own the resources under their feet and that they should be the ones making the decisions that affect their lives. This was unacceptable, and Reagan effec tively declared war on the Catholic Church in Latin America. For example, in Guatemala and El Salvador, tens of thousands of people were tortured and murdered by brutal military regimes and paramilitaries funded and supported by the United States. What was John Paul IPs response? He told the Salvadoran and Guatemalan people to sit down and shut up. They did not, and the Reagan administration kept funding the bloody violence. To be fair, the crimes of Reagan far exceed ed those of John Paul II, and if the Nuremberg Laws had any meaning beyond the Nazis, Rea gan would have been hanged. Much like Stalin, Reagan is proclaimed by his blind loyalists as someone who only wanted peace, and damn the historical record. Like Gandhis depiction of Stalin, in Latin America and elsewhere Rea gan was willing to wade through other peoples’ blood to get there. Lapdogs like Tsien gladly wallow in ignorance, licking the blood from his boots. a civil unie>n or domestic partnership. Contrasting marriage with civil unions, the latter are e)bvie>usly and distinctly not religious in nature. No one I know of will or can assert that there is a religious connotation. As I ne)ted earlier, the institution to be knewn as a civil union or a domestic partnership is mere ly a civil scaffold for the implementation of Article 1, Section 20. An Oregon appellate court has already applied Article 1, Section 20 in a case that granted certain benefits of an Oregon Health Sciences University nurse to her domestic partner. And, of course, Con necticut’s Republican governor has just signed a civil union bill granting the same kinds of benefits that SB 1000 grants. What is good enough for Connecticut is good enough for Oregon. All human relationships require an umpire. Not only do sporting events require umpires, but also business relationships of all kinds (share- holder/corporate, business partnerships and the civil aspects of marriage). There are laws and rules in all of these relationships, and the courts provide the umpires. These are privileges and benefits of the kind that Article 1, Section 20 requires to be applied to all Oregonians on the same terms. All members of the Oregon legislative assembly are sworn to uphold the Oregon Con stitution, including Article 1, Section 20. Thus, it is not only proper but also the right thing to do for Oregon legislators to vote for SB 1000. e would like to suggest to all the other couples who got married last March and The right thing to do April and received a refund check for your mar To the E ditor : riage license to sign it over to Basic Rights Ore he object of establishing civil unions is sim gon and send it to them. Wouldn’t it be great if ply (1) to provide a way to carry out the they got the $180,000! meaning and intent of Oregon Constitution Article 1, Section 20 (requires privileges and D an Z ehren immunities be granted to all Oregonians on the B ill C oulombe same terms) and (2) to allow the state to regu Portland late these human relationships just as it regu lates other human relationships (e.g., sharehold er relations with their corporations, business Bolster Basic partner relationships and, of course, marital rela tionships). No matter what the label is, the Rights Oregon intent is to grant the same privileges and bene To the E ditor : fits to all Oregonians on the same terms as ast week my wife and I received our $60 required by Article 1, Section 20. refund check from Multnomah County for The term “marriage” is not legally or philo our marriage license. Immediately we wrote a sophically the same as the label “civil union” check to Basic Rights Oregon in that amount to simply because marriage carries not only a civil help bolster its efforts on the issue of equality for sense but an inherent religious sense. Claims the queer community. made by proponents of Measure 36 that civil Whether or not you believe in its strategies unions are identical to marriage do not seem to to attain this goal, 1 urge anyone who received understand the religious aspect of marriage. The the refund to send it directly to BRO. It is fight mere fact that SB 1000 grants identical privi ing the fight for all of us. leges and benefits for both marriage spouses and civil union partners does not mean that the two R ebecca L evison institutions are identical; it only means that the Portland Legislature is adhering to Article 1, Section 20. Marriage is, I believe, the mystical and God- ordained union of a man and a woman in holy Critique or tirade? matrimony. I’m a born-again Christian, and To the E ditor : while» some may scoff at the notion of “holy mat eading the article “Is Love Makes a Family rimony,” 1 de) not. Marriage is a sacred institu Still Effective?” disappointed me |May 6|. tion, and that’s that. The fact that the state sur Was it really an article about Love Makes rounds that institution with a civil scaffold, so to a Family being effective or a diatribe against speak, canned and does not distract from that. Bonnie Tinker? There are three important reasons why for I think Tinker is asking some good questions lundreds of years now English and American that need to be answered by Basic Rights Ore common law has asserted a vital state interest in gon and other leaders in the lesbian/gay/trans- civil marriage. I will go into these and shew why gender community. I think the real reason that the same state interest applies to participants in Tinker is being attacked is because her views are T R Special June Pride rates are available now!
