Court Sides With Judge On Gay Laws Oregon Legislature Can Block Anti-Gay Rights Ordinances

In a setback for the Oregon Citizens Alliance’s antigay rights crusade, the Oregon Court of Appeals said Wednesday the Legislature can block cities and counties from passing ordinances dealing with sexual orientation.

A three-judge panel unanimously rejected a challenge to a law passed in 1993 that pre-empted local governments on the gay-rights issue.

Despite that law, voters in 27 cities and counties have endorsed anti-gayrights ordinances sponsored by the alliance. Some were approved before passage of the state law that was meant to invalidate them.

An OCA spokesman said Wednesday’s ruling will be appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court.

“We are in profound disagreement with the Court of Appeals,” said Scott Lively. “We think this will make a large number of people very angry in this state, to have their votes discounted.”

Julie Davis of Portland, a leader of organizations that have battled the OCA measures, termed the court ruling “one small victory in a much bigger battle to stop OCA from writing legalized discrimination into the Oregon Constitution.”

Two statewide measures sponsored by the OCA to ban specific civil rights protections for homosexuals have been rejected by voters, last year and in 1992.

However, the OCA has filed new proposed initiative measures for the 1996 ballot.

The appeals court decision upheld Marion County Circuit Judge Al Norblad.

The OCA argued that the law is not valid because it runs afoul of local governments’ home-rule powers.

But the Court of Appeals, citing a 1978 ruling of the Oregon Supreme Court, said the Legislature can preempt local authority in areas of “substantive policy.”

The appeals court said there is no dispute that the law passed two years ago falls into that category.

The law “validly and effectively pre-empts local legislation of the kind that it describes,” the court said.

The local measures typically would forbid enacting specific civil rights protections for gays and lesbians or using public resources to “promote” homosexuality.

They also would prohibit cities and counties from offering gay couples the same health benefits as married couples and bar them from spending public money on programs that promote or “express approval” of homosexuality.

David Fidanque, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, also applauded the ruling. The ACLU has fought many of the alliance’s measures.

“The opinion says the Legislature meant what it said and had the authority to say what it meant,” he said. “The proposals by the OCA are unconstitutional and could never be enforced anyway.”

Lively, however, said the decision is the product of “an arrogant judiciary which is willing to slap the tens of thousands of voters who voted in good faith.”

The court “is pandering to a very powerful gay rights political lobby,” he said.

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