Oregon: No Vote to Repeal Domestic Partnership Laws

Amazng news today in the Lemons v. Brabury case. The three judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court denied the Lemons Appeal. Read the decision here.

This is an amazing victory and means that there will be no vote in 2008 on Oregon’s Domestic Partnership law.

Via JustOut:

In an unusually quick ruling, the 3-judge 9th District Court found that the plaintiffs - petition signer Philip Lemons and his lawyers, the far-right conservative Alliance Defense Fund - did not have their equal protection and due process rights violated by not being allow to “contest,” in person, their signatures on a Referendum initiative last fall which sought to send Oregon’s Family Fairness Act to the ballot. The Family Fairness Act provides a panoply of rights and responsibilities to same sex couples in the state, and the organizers behind that referendum failed to gather the required signatures to send the new law to the ballot this November.

As reported in Just Out’s July 18 cover story, “Death of a Movement,” this means that November 2008 is only the second presidential election since 1984 that doesn’t include an anti-gay measure on the Oregon ballot.

Amen. Or as my mom summed it up in an email this evening, “This is awesome. Those liar better-than-thou jerks.”