米オレゴン州：「同性婚禁止は違憲」アクティヴィストが州を訴え

Oregon gay marriage activists sue state
Thu Sep 22, 6:25 PM ET - Reuters

Gay rights activists are suing the state of Oregon, saying that an amendment that voters added to the northwestern state's constitution last year banning gay marriage was unconstitutional.

Oregon was among the first states to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples last year, when Portland's Multnomah County issued the licenses to about 3,000 same sex couples before a court put a temporary halt to the marriages.

As a lawsuit over the marriages was moving through the courts, voters passed the amendment to Oregon's constitution. Eventually Oregon's Supreme Court sided with the anti-gay marriage forces and nullified the marriages in April 2005.

"Measure 36 is unconstitutional," Roey Thorpe, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon said of the ballot measure Oregon voters approved last November.

Arguments are scheduled to be heard in Marion County Circuit Court in the state capitol of Salem on Monday.

"The measure is just fine," said Christian Roggendorf, an attorney for the Defense of Marriage Coalition, which is named in the lawsuit.

Attorneys for the state did not comment, but in a brief said: "Regardless of the wisdom of the people's choice, however, plaintiffs' legal challenges to the measure fail."

The plaintiffs are a group of same sex couples - some are not yet married, some were married in March 2004 and later had their marriages nullified, while others married in Canada.

Basic Rights Oregon's attorneys are expected to argue that the initiative was "an improper and invalid exercise of the initiative power."