Hold a vote, unless we don't want you to

Sunday's Oregonian included an interesting editorial (some of which I actually agree with) about SB1000, the measure to create civil unions for gay couples. However, the complete lack of consistency with previous issues makes this a laugher.

SB1000 passed in the Oregon Senate by a vote of 19-11; Joanne Verger, a Democrat who represents parts of the Oregon central coast, was the lone member of her party to vote against the bill. Of the other 10 nays, all were rural Republicans except for Charles Starr and Bruce Starr, who represent Hillsboro and areas nearby, and Jackie Winters from the Salem outskirts. The yeas came from 17 Democrats, along with Republicans Frank Morse (Corvallis/Albany) and Ben Westlund (Bend).

The bill was then referred to the state House of Representives, where the House Majority Leader refused to bring it to a vote. Thus, the first three graphs of the O editorial:

Count up the failures in this legislative session, and you'll tick off a long, sorry list. But one stands out. One will be remembered as the most galling of all: The Oregon House's failure to vote, up or down, on Senate Bill 1000.

This is the bill that would have created Vermont-style civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, and outlawed discrimination against them in housing and employment. The Senate approved it two weeks ago. The House should have approved it, too, but at the very least, it should have voted on it.

Oregonians deserved that moment of consummate clarity, cutting off the rhetoric like a buzzer: Make up your mind. Yea or nay. Instead, House Speaker Karen Minnis maneuvered to keep it from coming to the floor.

Funny that the Oregonian is so insistent on a vote when it was — on two different occasions a few months ago — so sympathetic to the judicial filibuster in the United States Senate.

In "Nuking the Filibuster" on April 10, the Oregonian defined the filibuster as a "mechanism by which a senator may extend the debate on a measure by standing up and giving a long, long speech. Only a vote by 60 senators can make the senator sit down and shut up if he or she doesn't do so voluntarily." Now they want to "(cut) off the rhetoric like a buzzer."

In April, it noted the Republicans' 10-vote majority in the U.S. Senate, but sung the praises of the filibuster to "hold up the judicial nominations from President Bush that [Democrats] consider to be particularly odious." The filibuster, it added, offers "a bulwark against rushing to legislative judgment . . . partly as a check on domination of the process by one party." Now, when the Democrats are rushing to pull the wool over the eyes of voters who approved Measure 36, when that party wants to dominate the process, it's the Republicans who are playing the part of a minority thorn in the side of Democrats. (Yes, they have a majority in the House, but the Senate and the governor's mansion are held by Ds.)

Less than nine months ago, Oregon voters stated by a 13-point margin that "Only Marriage Between One Man And One Woman Is Valid Or Legally Recognized As Marriage." No sooner was the ink dry on the Measure 36 tally than (mostly) Democratic legislators were scheming with Basic Rights Oregon for ways to thwart the will of the people.

You didn't vote on "civil unions," they said with a smile. They're not the same as marriage. Really. (Never mind that SB1000 says civil unions are "substantially equivalent" to marriage.)

So what do I agree with in Sunday's editorial? First, I admit that Speaker Minnis looks like a chicken-little for refusing even a vote. While I don't like the idea of gay marriage, in whatever form it takes, I also don't like parliamentary shenanigans. Conservatives' arguments about judicial nominations include the idea that the people should be given the opportunity to make decisions, rather than having their decisions made for them. In our form of government, the people make decisions either through their elected officials, or through referendum, and Minnis should let that process work. If Oregonians differ with the legislature's decision, they can gather signatures and put the question on the ballot.

That brings me to my second point of agreement: the Oregonian calls on gay-rights supporters to do exactly that: put it on the ballot. As the editorial concluded, "We've heard speculation ad infinitum about what Oregonians think. It's time to let them speak for themselves."