TO THE EDITOR
REGRESSIVES II
I want to amplify upon last week’s letter
(4/7) on “Regressive Politics” from my fel-
low Springfield News columnist, Todd
Huffman. The Bush administration is fully
out of the closet. There’s no denying or mini-
mizing it. They want to reverse the New
Deal. But they don’t stop there in regressive
ambition. They even aspire to reverse the
Enlightenment.
Democracy is undermined by vote fraud.
Government accountability is ignored.
Macchiavelli is resurrected to counsel rulers
in control and manipulation of the people.
Empiricism is trumped by irrational ideol-
ogy. Global warming data is suppressed
while polar ice caps melt. Embryonic stem
cell research is prohibited with indifference
to thousands suffering terrible afflictions
such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and spinal
cord injuries. A simplistic two-word phrase,
“intelligent design,” is given equal weight
with the massive evidence of evolution
painstakingly assembled over 170 years from
multiple scientific disciplines. Sex education
is limited to “abstinence only” preaching de-
spite overwhelming evidence of its failure,
including increased incidence of HIV/AIDS.
In February 2004, some 60 prominent scien-
tists including 20 Nobel laureates signed a
complaint charging administration interfer-
ence in the scientific review process and de-
liberate misrepresentation of scientific find-
ings.
Their “culture of life” pretensions are
similarly medieval. Like the Grand
Inquisitor’s highly selective recognition of
the right to life, Bush’s war has inflicted an
Iraqi mortality figure conservatively esti-
mated at 100,000 by a peer-reviewed, Johns
Hopkins-led study published in The Lancet,
Britain’s leading medical journal. Iraqi vic-
tims have been mostly women and children,
killed largely by coalition bombing.
Meanwhile, press attention has remained ob-
sessively absorbed with one long-comatose
American woman, preceded by a relentless
series of other diversionary topics, while the
real right-to-life story — an Iraqi death count
from Bush’s war some 30 times the number
of Americans killed in 9/11 — has gone un-
mentioned. Among regressives, the sacred
right to life applies only to Americans.
I enthusiastically support Huffman’s rec-
ommendation that we adopt this term — al-
though I privately apply a term to them less
printable.
Jack Dresser, Ph.D.
Springfield
WOMEN’S ROLE
As this year marks the 35th anniversary of
the celebration of Earth Day, we continue to
focus on the grave dangers that face our
world in terms of the environmental destruc-
tion and degradation wrecked upon the planet
in order to feed, water, house, clothe and
manufacture things for all of humankind. The
current levels of population and poverty lead
to unbearable pressure on the Earth’s re-
sources, which leads us to deplete them at
rates that cannot be replenished. What will
we leave our children from our world so out-
stripped and polluted?
Slowing global population growth would
both reduce the demand on resources and
lead to fewer women of reproductive age.
This can be accomplished if women around
the world who want to control when and if
they have children have access to family
planning and education. The U.N. estimates
that worldwide, 350 million couples who
want to use contraceptives lack access to a
full range of family planning services.
Unfortunately, President Bush ignored the
causes and consequences of increased popu-
lation growth when he reinstated the “global
gag rule” that limits access to international
family planning, and again, canceled the
scheduled annual $34 million U.S. contribu-
tion to the United Nations Population Fund
that could have prevented nearly two million
unwanted pregnancies and approximately
800,000 abortions.
Our Earth cannot sustain continued popu-
lation growth. In order to improve the health
and well being of children, women and the
planet, we must make sure that every woman
can freely decide the size and spacing of her
family through access to safe and effective
BY GRETCHEN MILLER
Legal Strangers Now
But the momentum of history is on our side.
W
e’re not members of the country club after all. I was not really sure that I
even wanted to join, but when they offered applications I jumped at the
chance. Now I’m back outside. I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about it.
It hurts to be excluded. We all learn that early in life, when a clique won’t let out-
siders play with them. Sometime we respond with tears, sometimes with anger, some-
times we say we didn’t really want to play their stupid game anyhow. I feel a little of all
three responses right now.
Sarah and I obtained our marriage license from Multnomah County in March
2004 and were married here in Eugene, by our minister, along with a committed male
couple, before 50 or so members of our church and dozens of other friends, support-
ers, members of our community. It was a glorious event. Being a mostly “in my head”
sort of person, I was surprised by my deep feelings of relationship and belonging. The
public affirmation of our commitment felt exhilarating, liberating, and loving. Many
people, old and new friends and acquaintances, took the occasion to express their sup-
port for our family. The outpouring of support and affirmation has continued for a full
year, up to and including the celebration last month of our 25th and first anniversary.
I have been awed, humbled, and continue to be deeply appreciative of all the sup-
port we have received. It has far exceeded what would have been my wildest dreams,
if I had even had time to dream during the two days we had to plan our wedding. It is
humbling to realize that we are only one of thousands of same-sex couples sharing the
experience, commitment and affirmation of marriage.
We have been privileged to live through an amazing, indescribable event, one that
overtook us like a force of nature and carried us along on an immense tide of goodwill.
No court can take any of this away. My feelings include enormous gratitude for what
the community has given us.
But my feelings go beyond gratitude and are more complex. I can’t forget the his-
torical, patriarchal nature of marriage as an oppressive institution, which would give
anyone second and third thoughts about joining it. But I also am well aware of the
legal benefits of marriage that, at this time, are available in no other way.
Sarah and I have raised three terrific boys. The youngest, and only one still at
home, is finishing his junior year in high school. We used to be concerned about the
4 APRIL 21, 2005
lack of legal recognition for our family and tried to complete
legal documents to substitute for the simplicity of a legally
recognized marriage: wills, powers of attorney, health care
directives, guardianship, legal custody, adoption. Our boys
and the dozen or so other young people who have lived with
us over the years know that we are a family. Nothing a court
does can change that reality, but we were always concerned
whether others would see it in case of urgent need. Our children are older and those
concerns wane. I am still concerned for the thousands of other families that face those
perils now, but I am thinking about new legal problems for us. When our children leave
home and we have just each other, who will recognize that reality?
T
he law has a strong presumption that next of kin can make medical decisions
and make all arrangements after death. Can our wills, medical directives, pow-
ers of attorney, and health care powers of attorney stand up to the socially and
legally recognized onslaught of that legally recognized family? Perhaps, if we need
medical attention at home, we will be well enough known to the providers that they will
recognize our partnership. What if disaster falls somewhere else? With no legally recog-
nized marriage, would unknown ER doctors and nurses or EMTs in a strange locale con-
sider us family, or strangers? At least we now have a marriage certificate to carry with
us, to take out and demonstrate what we have done to assure that our family is recog-
nized, but once again, Sarah and I are legal strangers to each other.
The struggle is never over. The Supreme Court opinion in the Li case did not
touch the fundamental question, whether the Oregon Bill of Rights prohibits discrimi-
nation based on marital status in the recognition of legal benefits. Another lawsuit will
be brought to raise that issue. Senate Bill 1000 was introduced in the Legislature this
week to create civil unions in Oregon, so we could have the legal benefits of marriage
without offending the religious beliefs of some of our neighbors. Eugene is again con-
sidering amending the human rights ordinance to include protection for transgen-
dered people. All of these efforts need our support. The work continues.
The atmosphere in which we live and struggle is much changed. We are far more
“out” and more accepted than would have been possible a few decades ago. I continue
to have faith that the course of social change is arduous but the momentum of history
is on our side. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “The arc of the moral universe is
long, but it bends toward justice.”
Gretchen Miller is a Eugene attorney, administrative law judge and adjunct professor in planning and public policy.