Time running out for opponents of OR. Dom. Partnership

With 29 days left until the deadline (July 3rd) for anti-gay groups to turn in enough signatures to put our Oregon Domestic Partnership and anti-discrimination laws to a vote, Just Out blog is reporting that in actuality Concerned Oregonians and their supporters actually may only have about 15 days at this point to get that job done.

From Just Out blog’s Repeal Watch:

Sixteen days. That’s likely the absolute most time that the Concerned Oregonians political action committee, the chief organizers behind three current separately filed initiatives to repeal the Oregon Equality Act and Oregon Family Fairness Act, will have to collect the 82,769 valid signatures in order to make the November 2008 ballot. The increasingly narrow window of opportunity for success on the initiatives comes as a result of a number of strategic moves by Basic Rights Oregon and the American Civil Liberties Union in opposition to the initiatives. A series of prolongated appeals has sent all three initiatives to the Oregon Supreme Court, which has yet to issue an opinion on the initiative appeals. Even once a Supreme Court opinion is filed on any of all of the initiatives – which could happen as early as this Wednesday, June 4 – the opinion is subject to objections by other parties (either BRO and the ACLU or Concerned Oregonians and the chief initiative petitioners), which could further prolong the appeals process in a volley of back-and-forth between the State and these parties. When a final opinion on the initiative petitions is decided, the judge typically takes an additional ten days to issue a final judgment, according to the state Elections Division. Until that final judgment is issued, an organization cannot begin circulating petitions for signature. More after the jump.
Perhaps sniffing the scent of failure in the air, Concerned Oregonians’ ringleader David Crowe sent an impassioned e-mail plea to supporters over the weekend, seeking their support and prayer during the appeals process: “Will you believe God, pray, ask your church and home group to pray,” Crowe wrote in his brief missive, “and prepare to deliver petitions and petition information to your community in the event the Oregon Supreme Court releases the ballot wording next Week?… Pray the Oregon Supreme Court acts expeditiously!” In a separate e-mail message, Crowe decried the appeals process – a carefully calibrated series of checks and balances between the offices of the Secretary of State, Attorney General, chief petitioners and parties with a vested interest in initiative outcomes – as “fradulent efforts to prevent the VOTERS of Oregon from VOTING on laws they know the VOTERS will object to.” Further on in that May 29 e-mail message, Crowe hints that the organization has all but given up on its two separately filed initiatives to repeal the Oregon Family Fairness Act – IP 144 and IP 146 – and plan to focus exclusively on IP 145, their effort to repeal the Oregon Equality Act, if ever that initiative petition is approved for circulation.” “Given what seems to be the Oregon Supreme Court’s disinterest in an expedited decision to allow sufficient time for Oregon’s citizens to collect signatures on [IP] 145,” Crowe writes, “146 may well be dead on arrival.”

I also read here (from my Google alerts) that 1 in 5 States in our country now recognizes either gay marriage, civil unions, or some form of domestic partnership. That’s is a move in a good direction!!

domestic partnership

Marriage & Relationship Recognition

GLBT