Old FURIOUS nads! by The One True b!X

In addition to not quite comprehending just who it is that has special rights when it comes to civil marriage, now Senator Gary George (R-McMinnville) has been caught on tape arguing (with some help from his audience) that if he were to preach from a pulpit that homosexuality is wrong, under Oregon’s new laws he could be “brought up on charges” — and that this is just like Nazi Germany.

It hardly needs to be said, but George makes at least two mistakes there. One, the law doesn’t authorize bringing charges against someone for preaching bigotry from a pulpit. Two, the Nazis, of course, would not have brought him up on charges for preaching against homosexuality. They might instead have given him some sort of medal for doing so.

In an earlier post, I referenced what I’ve always referred to as the Special Rights for Heterosexuals Coalition. In the process, I linked that name to this Oregon Family Council page, because the coalition’s original site, which is what I used to use for the link, is long gone.

I bring this all up now because I just ran a Google search for “Special Rights for Heterosexuals Coalition” and discovered that the top hit for the term is that group’s original website, which in the scheme of things is entirely unimportant but gives me a great deal of pleasure nonetheless.

“The main thing that bothered us with the whole bill,” says Senator Gary George (R-McMinnville) in an interview with Just Out, “was the fact that here we go again, adding one more class of people that need to have special rights.” Apparently he’s mysteriously unfamiliar with the Special Rights for Heterosexuals Coalition which championed Measure 36.

“Basic Rights Oregon executive director Jeana Frazzini said today she was not surprised to learn that anti-gay interests have filed an initiative to repeal Oregon’s domestic partnership law,” says the BRO website. “The initiative was filed late Friday by State Senator Fred Girod (R-Stayton) and State Rep. Sal Esquivel (R-Medford). … The chief petitioners on the initiative have until July 3 to collect nearly 83,000 signatures to put their petition on the November 2008 ballot.”

We’ve seen New Jersey re-affirm the truism that “separate but equal” is a fallacy. Now we get to wait and see how long before this sort of thing makes it as abundantly clear for “parallel but equal” here in Oregon. “This sort of makes you wonder,” writes Gay Rights Watch, “what other situations a couple may run into in times of crisis.”

Unsurprisingly to anyone living in the rational world, the first interim report (pdf) of the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission reveals that in the 21st century it remains unavoidably true that “separate but equal” (euphemistically known to some in Oregon as “parallel but equal”) is a fallacy.