The court ruling out of Marion County last Friday upholding the voter approved constitutional ban on gay marriage in Oregon was a setback, but only in the short term. In the long term, gays in Oregon, and hopefully nationally, will win the same legal rights and protections that heteros have in their contracts of marriage.

Although I strongly believe the federal and state constitutions, with their guarantees for equal protection under the law, set a clear path through the courts for proponents of civil and equal rights, I also believe that proponents should not ignore a possible legislative path as an additional option for achieving the goal of equality for all citizens. That means we need to elect law makers who support gay marriage.

You must think I’m crazy that a politician would be willing to stand up for gay marriage during a campaign. But maybe I’m not. Consider the near victory of progressive Democrat and Iraq war vet, Paul Hackett, in a special congressional election last August in Ohio’s most conservative district (OH-02.) Surprisingly, Hackett openly supported gay marriage without using any wishy-washy political speak during the campaign and continues to do so as he embarks on his bid for a seat in the US Senate. In a recent interview with Salon (free day-pass required) Hackett makes no bones about his views:

I’m fond of saying, “Who cares?” The debate is about whether or not American men and women can walk into a courthouse and get equal treatment under the law regardless of their sexual preference. Anything less than that is un-American.

Interestingly, and to the chagrin of some dyed-in-the-wool liberals, Hackett pulls a steady and even thread through the issues of gun ownership, abortion and gay rights:

I don’t need Washington, D.C., or the government in my private life. Period. I don’t need them to dictate to my wife the decisions she can make with a doctor. I don’t need a Washington politician to tell my neighbors what they can do in the privacy of their bedroom. And I don’t need Washington politicians to tell me what guns to keep in my gun safe.

The ingenuity in Hackett’s approach is that he doesn’t let gay marriage stand alone as a single issue. In relating it to other issues, such as gun ownership*, he inspires logic rather than base emotion alone, which has the desired effect of opening up a voter’s mind.

Obviously Hackett is a maverick within the Democratic party because the establishment does not support gay marriage and many Stone Age Dems seem to be more perplexed by him than intrigued. Yet pols like Hackett aren’t just mavericks, they are representatives of the emerging progressive movement, which has it’s base in the net-roots where Hackett gained his support and funding.

Politicians and activists in Oregon who are fighting to overturn the inequality of Measure 36 (the ban on gay marriage,) can learn a lot from Mr. Hackett’s approach to campaigning and politics. If he could do what he did in Ohio’s 2nd and famously conservative district that hugs the Bible Belt, activists in Oregon should be able to successfully appeal to the fair mindedness of a majority of Oregonians.

And while we’re finding pols with guts who will correct the inequality of M36 through legislative action, we can advocate the notion that the state and federal constitutions are not just complex legal documents only to be analyzed by Lewis & Clark College and Ivy League intellectuals, but are also moral documents that unequivocally advocate equality, a simple concept we can all understand.

*Paul Hackett does support Federal gun control laws.

For equal protections wording in the state and federal constitutions, see next page.

Article I, section 20 of the Oregon Constitution states:
No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.

Section I of the 14 Amendment of the US Constitution states:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 5th, 2005 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Elections, Equal/Civil Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.