WWW.JUSTOUT.COM
MARCH 18,2011
4
SUBMITTED PHOTO
g 10
Better To Have Loved and Lost
Couples to celebrate same-sex marriage
licenses given but taken away
B Y AARO N S P E N C E R
They were floored when they heard. Pat Em-
merson and Joyce Felton, a Portland lesbian
couple, could now get married. Reports o f the
news zipped from televisions and radios to of
fice water coolers and coffee shops.
“It was overwhelming,” Emmerson says.“Not
only was I not going to get fired or get beaten
up, but I was actually going to be legally recog
nized for who I was.”
The next day, March 3,2004, hundreds rushed
to the Multnomah County building, where they
stood in line in the cold rain waiting to say their
vows and get marriage licenses. Later, more
couples flocked to Keller Auditorium downtown,
where weddings were held en masse.
More than 3,000 gay and lesbian couples were
wed during a seven-week period in spring 2004
after Multnomah County suddenly began issu
ing wedding licenses to people of the same-sex.
The marriages aroused much controversy
both locally and nationally, and they were later
ruled void by the Oregon Supreme Court. O r
egon voters also passed a constitutional amend
ment declaring marriage to be between one
man and one woman. But one church in Port
land is celebrating the fact that the marriages
happened at all.
“It was such a joyful time. It was an extraor
dinary experience,” says the Rev. Kate Lore, so
cial justice minister at the First Unitarian
Church of Portland, which is throwing a week
end-long event this month, seven years after the
marriages.
The celebration comes as LGBTQadvocates
in Oregon prepare to make a renewed push for
marriage. Advocacy group Basic Rights Oregon
has a campaign under way that would make
same-sex marriage legal in the state as soon as
next year, effectively ending the ban enacted
during the fallout from the Multnomah County
ordeal in 2004.
“Things have changed quite a bit in Oregon
and across the country since 2004,”
says Jeana Frazzini, executive direc
tor o f BRO. “We’ve seen public sup
port move quite rapidly in favor of
same-sex couples’ rights.”
I lere’s What You Missed
In 2004, gay marriage had risen to
the forefront o f U.S. public debate.
The previous summer, two Canadian
provinces, Ontario and British C o
lumbia, began allowing same-sex
marriage. In November 2003, the
Massachusetts Supreme Court found
the state’s ban on same-sex marriage
to be unconstitutional, and in February 2004,
San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses
to gays and lesbians.
At the same time, President George W. Bush
was pushing to amend the Constitution to limit
marriage between a man and a woman. Several
states had passed similar laws, and plans were
“Our w edding w as sort of
w him sical. We skip p e d in to ‘Zip-
a -D e e -D o o -D a h ’ instead of ‘ Here
C o m e s the B rid e .’”
-PAT EMMERSON
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