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16 JUStpUt JUNE 2.2006 AGENT FOR YOU Your west side and Yamhill County specialist 503-537-5505 direct GUARANTEED TO SELL YOUR HOUSE OR I’LL BUY IT MYSELF! Obstetrics and Gynecology > CU/17 Donor Infernination Phone 503 27/-9936 > I I * PC C mc ^À c V____ 1040 N.W. 22nd, Suite 330, Portland," OR 97210 Raines G-lobe Travel Person to Person Travel Planning International Specialists Vacation Packages • Cruises • Tours • Group Travel Downtown Salem Since 1948 129 Commercial NE • 503-399-1800 • 800-971-7210 Your #1 choice 24/7/365 503.227.1212 Big City Produce Local Folks, Local Produce *>OOA BtST <s&ss 6 Food Sy**" Little Store . . . Big on Diversity. 722. N Sumner (of N Albina) • Portland • 503-460-3830 It’s a you parade. D. Fulps/George Kettner Herzog-Meier national Professional Group WAYNE EARHART Broker KAREN M. SWEIGERT, MD coLOuueix BANKER □ Drivers wanted. ♦ 503-644-9121 »cars@ henogmeier.com NATIONAL Closed-Door Vote Rankles ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union expressed its disappointment May 18 as the Senate Judiciary Committee, meeting in a tiny room behind the Senate floor, approved a measure to amend the Constitution to deny marriage protections to gay and lesbian couples and their children. “The Senate Judiciary Committee today took another step towards undermining the Constitution,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. The Federal Marriage Amendment, offered by Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., would deny states the ability to define marriage themselves and would han all “legal incidents” of marriage to all unmarried couples. The vote took place with committee members meeting in a small room off of the Senate floor, which was closed to the public. The ACLU noted that voting to amend the Constitution should not be done in secret hut rather through a rigorous and thoroughly open process. Opposition to the amendment has come from a diverse crowd, including conservative sources. Vice President Dick Cheney; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; former Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo.; former Rep. Boh Barr, R-Ga., author of 1996 s Defense of Marriage Act; columnist George Will; and others have spoken out against the measure. “Senators should not vote to amend the Constitution behind closed doors, in a room so small that the entire committee barely fits and sen ators don’t even have enough room to sit down,” said Christopher Anders, an ACLU legislative counsel. “The nations founding fathers must he rolling over in their graves today with a Senate committee that hides from the public while re writing the country’s most precious document. The nation deserves more from its Senate.” 11 i ll MMarvic* pi i n Hi n • newsletters • brochures • rack cards J Tel 5O3.281.8Ó88 • Fax 503.249.1440 • www.impress-usa.com UTAH Amendment Doesn't Trump Partner Benefits, Says Court A Utah court has ruled that its anti-gay relationship amendment, one of the most sweeping of its kind to pass in the 2004 election, does not bar Salt Lake City from offering health insurance benefits to the domestic partners of city employees. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a lesbian employee of the Salt Lake City Police Department and the local branch of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, cheered the decision as an important victory for same-sex couples in states with similar anti-gay relationship amendments. “The court understood correctly that laws banning gay people from marriage do not in any way bar employers from choosing to provide domestic partner benefits," said Margaret Plane of the ACLU of Utah. “The court recognized that employers have important reasons for wanting to provide health insurance for the families of all their employees, and it’s within their rights to do so.” Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson signed an executive order Sept. 21, 2005, extending health and other employment benefits to city employees’ same-sex and heterosexual domestic partners. The governing body of the agency that administers health insurance for state and local government employees, the Utah State Retirement Board, then filed a petition in state court asking whether Utah’s anti-gay relationship amendment prohibits the city from offering health insurance benefits to domestic partners. In rejecting this argument, the court ruled: “The court is aware of no Utah law of general application to marriage that established health benefits as a perquisite of marriage.... In their Sen. Wayne Allard hopes to deny states the right essence, employee health benefits are first and fore to define marriage. most simply a perquisite of employment.” OKLAHOMA Anti-Gay Adoption Law Quashed business cards Lambda Legal, a national civil rights organiza tion, represented a group of same-sex couples who adopted children while living in other states and later moved to Oklahoma or want to visit the state with their family. It argued that the law was invalid based on the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection, due process and right to travel as well as the mandates of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. The court found that the statute violated the U.S. Constitution by singling out a specific group for discrimination. “Gay and lesbian parents in Oklahoma can now breathe a collective sigh of relief,” said Ken Upton, senior staff attorney in Lambda Legal’s South Central Regional Office and lead attorney on the case. “Oklahoma has to treat the children of gay and lesbian parents the same as all other kids.” In a decision released May 19, a federal court struck down an Oklahoma law that could have made the adopted children of same-sex couples legal orphans when their families are in Oklahoma. The Adoption Invalidation Law, hastily passed at the end of the 2004 Oklahoma legislative ses sion, held that Oklahoma “shall not recognize an adoption by more than one individual of the same sex from any other state or foreign jurisdiction.” GEORGIA Court Strikes Down Marriage Amendment An amendment to the Georgia Constitution that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman was ruled unconstitutional May 16 in Fulton County Superior Court. According to the judge issuing the ruling, the amendment violated the single subject rule provi sions of the Georgia Constitution because it also included a second part that would have prohibited