License to Love - City considers domestic partner registry.

The two lovers are, in many ways, the perfect couple. They hold hands, hug and finish each others' sentences. They own their tidy, well-furnished house together, pay taxes, and are active in their neighborhood association. They've lived together for 11 years, and although they've always wanted to, they can't marry. It's against the law — Kent Kullby and Tim Smith are men.

On Sept. 18 the Eugene City Council will consider a unanimous recommendation from the city's Human Rights Commission to give Kullby and Smith and other unmarried couples like them the next best thing to marriage, a domestic partner registry.

The proposal has sparked a heated debate in Eugene. Christian conservatives angrily charge that the registry would undermine marriage while promoting an immoral and unhealthy lifestyle choice. Human rights supporters say the measure is an important step towards fairness and equality and ending anti-gay and lesbian bigotry.

"For us it's an important milestone that leaves us feeling more included and valued in the community," Smith says.

But Rennina Brittain testified to the HRC that as a "child of God" she was "absolutely ashamed and mortified" at the proposal. "Same sex partnership is more of a sadness and a disease than an acceptable way of life."

Smith, a dental hygienist, and Kullby, a city planner, say they hatched the idea for a domestic partner registry in Eugene seven months ago after a visit to Oak Park, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. At a downtown cafe they saw a poster inviting gay and lesbian couples to register with the city as domestic partners. "We thought about it and decided, gosh this would be really neat for Eugene," Smith says.

When they came back, they found that Eugene didn't have a registry and there was no one working on creating one. "It was up to us," says Kullby.

The couple brought the idea to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) who included it in the work of a code revision work group. (The HRC proposal to the council also includes protections for transgender people and other changes, see story, page 16.)

The HRC work group studied the code changes for six months, holding four public forums. The registry proposal won't put Eugene on the cutting edge of gay rights. At least 47 other cities and states have already created domestic partner registries, including Multnomah County and Ashland.

Like other registries, Eugene's would lack legal teeth and be largely symbolic. The ordinance wouldn't require businesses to treat domestic partners the same as married couples in providing health insurance, for example.

To qualify for Eugene's registry, same sex or opposite sex couples must live as a family and be in a relationship of "mutual support, caring and commitment, and intend to remain in such a relationship." Neither partner can be married, registered as a domestic partner to any other person, or have terminated a registered domestic partnership within the last six months. Both must be 18, mentally competent and not close relatives. Couples don't have to be city residents. The city recorder will charge a fee (probably less than $100) to pay for the paperwork and issue a certificate to the happy couple.

Supporters don't expect a flood of people to register their partnerships. Ashland registered 23 partnerships in its first six months. Multnomah County has registered 381 partnerships in the last eight years.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 161 Eugene households reported living in male-male partnerships and 333 reported female-female partnerships. Together, reported gay and lesbian partnerships amounted to about 1 percent of the total households in Eugene.

Smith says that although there is a "very large gay and lesbian community in Eugene," many may choose not to publicly register for safety concerns. The proposed code does ban discrimination on the basis of a couple's domestic partner registry status.

Kullby and Smith praise Eugene as a tolerant community and say they have experienced comparatively little discrimination as an openly gay couple.

Four years ago, they found graffiti on their back fence reading, "Fags and Bitches." A year ago someone threw a cement block through their front window, but they're unsure if it was a hate crime.

Several years ago, a downtown health club refused to offer them a cheaper "family" membership rate. The club has since changed its policy to accept domestic partnerships.

Simple situations that straight couples take for granted can be difficult for gay couples. At a wedding in the Midwest, Smith introduced Kullby as his "partner" and got the response, "What business are you in?"

Smith says he once had to provide a detailed description of his life and choices to explain why his son under a previous marriage was covered under his partner's medical insurance from the city.

The city of Eugene extended insurance and other benefits to domestic partners four years ago under former City Manager Vicki Elmer. Since then, a lawsuit has made benefits available to state and local government workers throughout Oregon.

Smith says he's read that there are some 200 legal rights and privileges married couples enjoy that aren't available to gay and lesbian couples. For example, Smith says if he dies, Kullby may have no legal say about how and where his body is buried or cremated.

"We don't exist officially," says Smith, describing their legally "invisible" relationship. The registry could make such legal problems easier by providing official evidence of their relationship, he says.

But more important, the couple say, would be the symbolic value of the city approving the registry. For straight couples, marriage is about two lovers wrapping themselves in family, friends and community to support, affirm and celebrate their commitment to spend their lives together.

Kullby and Smith say that's what they want too. Kullby says, "as individuals, we know we're partners and that we'll be together for the rest of our lives." But, "as far as our relationship to the community at large, it's really important to us."

For gays and lesbians too often estranged from their families, such community support is even more important, Kullby says. "We have to create our own community."

Smith says the registry will also send a valuable message of acceptance to gay and lesbian youth, "high school students who are coming out and wondering what their life is going to be as an adult. This gives an example of how there is a potential for normalcy. Recognition and acknowledgement in the community is part of what it is to be normal, because in the absence of that, there's just hostility."

That gays aren't legally allowed to marry "feels insulting, it feels just bad," Smith says. "The most basic of rights, the right to get married and have that partnership recognized by the community, we are denied that. Much more fundamental is the reason of denial, that we are not worthy."

Hostility towards homosexuality was openly apparent from a vocal minority at a public hearing the HRC held on the proposal this summer.

Bill Northrup said the proposal would "devalue marriage and sanction homosexuality," which he described as "immoral and unhealthy to society."

"God would not be in favor of this," said George Brittain. He accused the human rights commissioners of "pushing their values and their minorities onto the public."

Rennina Brittain said homosexuality was not practiced by dogs, elephants and canaries. "Animals have more morals than we humans do."

"Respect the Creator's design," Greg Kaminski testified. He said he should not be "forced to accept their moral standards and discriminated against in my landlordship in allowing housing to someone I would disagree with."

Billy Rojas wrote Mayor Jim Torrey to condemn him and the HRC as "moral cretins" for not opposing homosexuality. "I would very much like to call you every derogatory swear word that is in my vocabulary. You disgust me completely."

But supporters outnumbered opponents at the public hearing two to one. In 2000, the anti-gay Measure 9 failed in Lane County with 58 percent voting no.

Lucy McIver described how she was married 30 years and raised four kids to adulthood before she divorced and later found a female partner. "Karen and I were brought together by a God that cares for people, that loves people of all walks of life."

"I was brought up believing that God created all people equal," said Janice Eby. "The value of any one person's contribution to society must not be determined by their gender or their sexual orientation."

More support came in mailed testimony. "It is time for a city that is known nationally for protecting its trees, to also protect the precious gift of human relationships," William Losie and Timothy Vinson, partners for seven years, testified in writing.

"As a compassionate caring community, it is high time we give rights to people with alternative relationships," wrote Barbara Hasbrouck. "Love comes in many different forms, but it is still love."

Smith says the argument that recognizing gay and lesbian partnerships will weaken marriage is not credible. "Heterosexuality would have to be incredibly weak" to be undermined by a few domestic partnerships, he said. "Just how are Kent and I a threat to anyone?"

As far as sanctioning a bad example, Smith says, "if there's a bad example, it is a bad example of intolerance. ... Basic bigotry is hiding behind the Bible, hiding behind the cross, hiding behind the flag as though the Bible, flag and the cross really say those things."

"We don't mean any disrespect to anyone else, but we don't have to apologize for our existence as gay people and a gay couple," Smith says. "There are same sex couples in the community and there are a lot of us and we're not going away."

Some gay people have opposed domestic partnerships as "tokenism" that weakens the fight for fully legalizing gay marriage, Smith says. "OK, gay people, here's your crumb, now shut up."

But Smith and Kullby say domestic partnership is an important step towards eventual full equality. They don't plan a big, wedding-like celebration around their registry if the ordinance passes. They'll save that to when they really get married and discrimination against gays and lesbians has gone the way of bans on interracial marriage and separate drinking fountains.

"I believe [gay marriage] will come true in our lifetimes," Smith says. But for now, "a domestic partner registry in Eugene is evidence that we're moving in that direction, and that's really exciting."

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The Eugene City Council will wrestle with that question Sept. 18 when it considers a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance that may require businesses and organizations to let transgendered people use the restroom of their choice.

The thought of cross-dressing men in women's rooms has the Christian right in a tizzy.

"The very idea of an adult male in the restroom with my young child turns my stomach, makes me want to vomit," said Rennina Brittain, a "child of God" who testified at a Human Rights Commission (HRC) hearing. "If something were to happen to my child who is responsible? Are you responsible?"

Bill Northrup wrote a nine-page e-mail predicting the ordinance would bring chaos to schools and workplaces. "It will provide the sexually deviant with a source of recreation in public restrooms," he wrote, predicting "predators could easily use it to rape or molest."

"It's sort of a free bathroom pass for pedophiles and voyeurs," Nick Urhausen testified.

But the transgender provision has the unanimous backing of the HRC and supporters call the opposition ignorant and/or biased.

Transgendered people don't want to go to the women's room to "gawk and stare or molest," said William Churchill, member of a HRC work group that recommended the change. "They just want to go in there and do their business and get out."

Jennifer Self, another HRC work group member, called the "free bathroom pass" theory far fetched. "Somebody would have to actually identify themselves publicly as transgendered," putting themselves at risk of discrimination and attack, she said.

"It makes so little sense," Self said of the criticism. The proposal doesn't make it legal to attack or harass people in restrooms, she said. Even without the ordinance, a criminal "could already do that."

Current statistics show that the vast majority of sexual assaults are by straight men, Self said. "It's not transgendered people."

"Transgender people are not predators," said Roey Thorpe, director of Basic Rights Oregon. "It's an ugly stereotype."

Thorpe said there must be some basic "societal anxiety" about going to the bathroom. Pointing to the history of the fight to desegregate restrooms in the South, she said, "every civil rights movement does indeed come down to the bathroom."

In reality, transgendered people are far more afraid of heterosexuals when they go to the bathroom, Thorpe said. They are "terrified" of harassment or that someone will call the police, she said. "They just want to not be noticed."

Chicora Martin, the UO's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender support and education director, said transgendered people often live in fear. "I've worked with students who've waited an entire day to use a restroom facility," she said. It's "ironic" people would fear someone who's "so fearful of their own safety."

Gretchen Miller, chair of the HRC work group, said the ordinance is just common sense. "If you look like, are dressing like, or are acting like a woman, it seems like you should go to the women's bathroom. It's likely if you go to the men's bathroom, you're going to get in trouble," she said.

Miller pointed out that 46 other local governments have already passed similar transgender rights ordinances, including Portland, Seattle and more conservative towns like Iowa City. "We're hardly breaking new ground here," she said.

Cities that have passed the ordinances haven't suffered "chaos" or anything like it, according to Miller. "We're not aware of big problems that have happened," she said. "It's uneventful."

City human rights staffer Greg Rikhoff said in most places bathrooms are not a big issue. Most restrooms have private stalls and many new buildings include unisex private restrooms for families or people in wheelchairs.

Shower facilities in health clubs may be more of a problem, Rikhoff said. But organizations in other cities have solved the problem through scheduling or providing alternative facilities. The ordinance requires only "reasonable" accommodation, and small businesses likely wouldn't be forced to build separate showers or bathrooms, Rikhoff said.

Janice Eby dismissed opponents bathroom fears. "A child is more likely to be abused by a family member or by a member of the clergy," she testified in support of transgender rights. "I'm fed up with hatred and bigotry." — Alan Pittman

If you're a woman trapped inside a man's body, which bathroom do you go to?

I guess the one in the asylum to which you are committed. Perversion is one thing. Total delusional behavior is another. Apparently in parts of Oregon, they want to combine the two.

What is involved here is an almost maniacal compulsion to make the world accept any abberration in behavior or thought as normal. If the local politicians had any sense, they would simply explain to these folk that for their own good--and the image of the community--they were going to permanently table the resolution, with no further discussion. But that would indeed require a modicum of common sense, would it not?

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

Very well... if they want the BENEFITS of marriage, then they must pay the CONSEQUENCES of divorce, including having to go before a judge, ruined credit, the MARRIAGE TAX, and custody battles.... Let's see how fast they run then....

Supporters don't expect a flood of people to register their partnerships.

Especially if one partner is a sheep or a camel.

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