The Big "No Dah!"

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled today that the 3,000 marriage licenses issued last year to same-sex couples were invalide because Multnomah County had no authority in the matter. The AP reported that "The court said while the county can question the constitutionality of laws governing marriage, they are a matter of statewide concern so the county had no authority to issue licenses to gay couples."

Up to this point, we've been told that these couples were anguishing because their marriages were in limbo. Of course, Basic Rights Oregon and the Multnomah County Commisioners who hatch this underhanded plot in secret have never apologized (nor did they apologize in their Press Release today).

They thought that if they marriage licenses were issued then it would be very difficult to have them revoked. And if not for Oregon's new constitutional amendment that would probably have been true.

It was obvious last spring the county did not have authority to issue licenses. They trotted out their attorney to say that the constitution and the law did not explicitly say that marriage was between a man and a woman.

Think about this. The Oregon constitution was written by 19th century men at a time when homosexual behavior was considered a crime against nature; an abomination. The framers did not need to explicitly define marriage because everyone knew the definition of marriage. No honest person can say that the framers really intended to allow same-sex marriages even though they found homosexual acts abominable. If they didn't intend same-sex marriage then no constitutional violation exists for not allowing those marriages. To say the framers weren't explicit is to obfuscate their actual intent.

Oregon's Constitutional Amendment only made explicit what was already in the Constituion. If the framer's were alive they would have said, "No, Dah!" although perhaps with somewhat saltier language.