A Giant and Happy Step Forward

Well, we finally did it. Same-sex marriage is legal in Oregon, and probably for good.

On Monday, a federal judge in Eugene ruled that a ban on gay marriage enshrined in the state constitution by Oregon voters ten years ago would not likely stand in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions last June that struck down much of the federal “Defense of Marriage” act.

Multnomah County, where I live, legalized same-sex marriage in early 2004, and granted more than 3,000 licenses to gay and lesbian couples before court activity halted the process and a November initiative killed it altogether. The statewide vote that year was 57 percent for Ballot Measure 36, which defined marriage as “between one man and one woman,” versus 43 percent against.

It was disheartening for gays, lesbians, and those of us who support their civil rights. We knew the future was with us; we knew ever-increasing numbers of younger Americans see nothing wrong with same-sex marriage; but we figured the U.S. would have to wait another generation to make that leap.

The wonder of it is that it suddenly happened so fast. Twenty-six years ago I published op-ed pieces in the Roseburg News-Review in support of gay rights, and enjoyed a shower of enraged and abusive letters to the editor in response. Two years ago, it felt like we were no closer to change than we’d been in 1988.

But Oregon is actually the eighteenth state to legalize same-sex marriage in the last eleven months, one way or the other, along with the District of Columbia. Pennsylvania followed a day later (yesterday, as I write this).

It’s not all over. Some states where judges saw the writing on the Supreme Court wall will fight the inevitable. Idaho’s governor Otter, where it happened last week, will appeal, and so will Arkansas’s attorney general, so gay marriages are on hold there. Pennsylvania’s governor will not appeal. Who knows what will happen in the Midwestern and Southern states that so far have held out?

Administratively, we’re in the clear in Oregon, because Governor John Kitzhaber and Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum (an acquaintance, actually) made it clear even before Monday’s decision by Judge McShane that they had no interest in enforcing the ban on gay marriage. It’s possible that opponents will try to mount an initiative to have everyone vote on it again, but if they do, I predict they will lose this time.

What I wonder is: What is going through the minds of all those Americans (and my fellow Oregonians) who seemed so convinced that gay marriage is an abomination that will somehow destroy the sanctity of hetero marriage? I don’t care to gloat or make sour jokes; I’m too pleased about this week’s developments. But I’m sincerely curious about how they’re feeling now that it seems as if the world is collapsing; at least, that’s how some of them used to put it.

Some years ago I read a book in which the author went to Oxford, Mississippi to find and interview a bunch of white people and law enforcement officers who were captured in a historic photo yelling in opposition to the desegregation of the University of Mississippi. (The riots there resulted in considerable violence and the shooting deaths of two people: a French journalist and a white jukebox repairman who wandered by out of curiosity.) The book made me think about all the many white Americans who had fought against desegregation, yelled ugly things at their fellow citizens, and perhaps even attacked them physically.

Many of those people are still alive, I thought. Where are they now? Have they changed -- their attitudes softened -- or are they stewing in their quiet houses and nursing homes with rage, fear, and paranoia as the modern world swirls around and past them?

My many gay friends, some of whom already got married out of state, are happy. So am I. What are the longtime opponents of same-sex marriage feeling now? How will they view our country in the coming years?