November 1992: Karen Hagedorn and
Sheryl Bernheine proudly announce the
birth of their daughter Bailey
think it was an option for a same-sex couple to try to
put in a birth announcement. “This is not a new prob-
lem,” Flynn says.
But Molly and Kari Kenzie didn’t know about the
policy when Molly gave birth to Owen in November of
2005, six months after Hailey Flynn was born. The
they weren’t willing to start a child’s life
with a lie. Simmons says they’ve felt “a
warm embrace by the social services
agencies of the state” and that the adoption
training was sensitive to the needs of gays
and lesbians. “The only hitch with this has
been The Register-Guard, and they are
excluding a large number of people, adop-
tive and gay and lesbian parents,” he says.
The Flynns were incensed as they
heard more and more stories like their
own. In October 2005, they sent a letter to
the city’s Human Rights Commission
quoting what they had heard from Dave
Baker through the first few months of
Hailey’s life. “He did a survey of 12 other
newspapers regarding how those papers
handle the birth announcement issue and
he plans to use that information to come
up with some sort of R-G birth announce-
ment policy by next week,” Becky wrote.
But time dragged on, and instead of meet-
ing with parents and others upset by the
policy, the R-G stopped returning the
Flynns’ phone calls.
The Flynns were at their wits’ end,
Becky says. Because the statute of limita-
tions for discrimination was about to run
out, she filed a civil rights complaint with Oregon’s
Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI). And through
Eugene’s EQuality Network and other LGBT and
queer-friendly organizations, including the Religious
Response Network, the Flynns began to gather signa-
tures on a petition to the R-G and planned a “Mother’s
a DNA test to prove paternity.” Now, he says, he’s
hearing more about it as a First Amendment issue. And
the Flynns are frustrated with the time it’s taking.
“They say, ‘You’re rushing us; we’re studying the
issue,’” Becky says, “but we know that 12 years ago,
another family complained.”
Jeff Wright, the R-G reporter who wrote about the
May protest for his paper, says that he knows some
staff members have emailed the publisher to express
their desire that the paper change its policy. The BOLI
complaint, however, may cast things in a different
light. “Is the paper a place of public accommodation or
is it not?” Wright says, “If we’re not a public accom-
modation,” he says, “then there is no jurisdiction” for
BOLI to rule. Becky Flynn wrote to the Human Rights
Commission that the R-G identifies birth, wedding and
death announcements as a public service; this, she
believes, means the announcements are a public
accommodation.
Kevin Miller says that he finds the complaint upset-
ting because the government cannot tell papers what to
print. Freedom of the press, after all, is enshrined in the
First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Becky
Flynn says it’s not a First Amendment issue. “They’re
trying to make it sound like it’s a David and Goliath
issue between the paper and the government, but the
government has a responsibility to make sure public
accommodations do not discriminate against protected
classes,” she says.
Will the complaint help? The civil rights investiga-
tor in charge of the process is on a month’s extended
leave and will issue her report when she returns early
in the new year, Flynn says. Simmons says, “We hear
that the R-G is interested in changing the policy, but
Activists wonder why the paper responded to pressure about the
obituaries section but resists public outcry about birth announcements.
Kenzies had been together for several years when they
were married in Portland in March 2004. “When you
find your person, you talk about those things before
you get married, and we knew that kids were in our
future for sure,” Molly says. She got pregnant on their
second try.
“We had quite a wonderful experience,” Molly
says. “[Our status as a same-sex couple] didn’t seem to
be an issue, so we were not on guard at all.” At
McKenzie-Willamette, where Owen was born, a nurse
gave them the birth announcement form for the R-G,
and Molly crossed out father and put Kari’s name with
“mother” written in. Life with a newborn was too busy
for them to track the birth announcements, but soon,
they received three copies of the announcement from
the R-G. They couldn’t believe Kari’s name wasn’t
there. “It was like a slap in the face,” Molly says.
Kevin Miller, now the editor of OSU’s alumni mag-
azine, was a senior editor at the R-G when the Flynns
began the process of trying to change the policy. He
sympathizes with parents who feel anguish over the
policy. “For me personally as an editor, this was one of
the most painful dilemmas that I ever dealt with,” he
says. He wanted to find a way to get the names of both
same-sex parents in, but he knew the paper’s policy.
After 25 years of working at the paper, he adds, he
“respects the newspaper publisher’s right to decide
what does and doesn’t go into his newspaper.”
Todd Simmons moved to Eugene with his partner
Gustavo Martinez-Padilla because they knew they
could adopt in Oregon. In Florida, where they had
lived, they looked into adoption, “but you really can’t
unless you’re willing to lie; it’s the only state that by
statute forbids gays and lesbians from adopting.” And
that they feel a little under pressure” from the com-
Day Rally” at the paper. The groups placed an ad in the
plaint and the public nature of the protest last May.
EW to protest the R-G’s policy, and more than 200 peo-
But Simmons and other activists ask why the R-G
ple signed the petition. During the May 11 rally, 15
changed its mind so quickly on another issue in the
people walked in to cancel their subscriptions, accord-
announcements section: printing photos with obituar-
ing to Jeff Wright’s R-G article about the protest. The
ies. When the paper announced that for space reasons,
Flynns have kept track of more than 50 households that
photos would no longer be published, Sharon Flynn
have canceled their subscriptions about the issue.
notes, there was a public outcry with many letters to
At press time, Dave Baker and editor and publisher
Alton Baker III hadn’t returned EW
phone calls, but the news department’s
birth announcement staff confirmed
that the policy was to list only biologi-
cal parents. “The staff members we’ve
talked to at the R-G have all been so
nice and have been totally on our
side,” Sharon Flynn said. Becky added
that Dave Baker was also very helpful
when the Flynns first complained
“until he talked to Alton Baker, and
then he stopped returning our phone
calls.” In her October 2005 letter to the
Human Rights Commission, Becky
wrote that Dave Baker “warns that he
has tried to make other changes at the
newspaper in the past and has, at times,
been unsuccessful.”
“Actually, it’s kind of a moving tar-
get,” says Todd Simmons, who has
been working on the issue for the
EQuality Network. “They said that
their policy was being applied equally
to all couples, unmarried heterosexual
December 1993: Alicia Hays and Adelka Shawn
couples too, but they’ve been unable
to show that they’ve given any couple
proudly announce the birth of their son Jackson
DECEMBER 21, 2006 15