Word: multnomah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Oregon's Supreme court last week declared invalid the marriages of 3,022 gay couples wed last year in Multnomah County. Although Connecticut just passed a bill that would make it the second state, after Vermont, to legalize gay civil unions, same-sex marriages have run into legal trouble elsewhere. --By Jeninne Lee--St. John...
Thorpe laughs. "They've never been in trouble" with B.R.O., she says. So close are the four liberal commissioners to the gay community of Portland--the biggest city in Multnomah--that Thorpe had waited until after the holidays to present the marriage idea to them. "I knew they would be going to all kinds of Christmas parties with gay people, and the temptation would be strong not to keep it confidential," she says...
...least one same-sex couple showed up at the county building anyway, and they ended up in the office of county attorney Sowle. Even though Sowle had decided that Multnomah must grant same-sex marriage licenses, she did not provide one. Instead, she obfuscated. "I said, 'You know, I'm working on this opinion, and if I could prevail on you to wait a couple of days, I would appreciate it a lot. It would be a very good thing,'" she says...
...also failed to divulge the truth to another one of her clients, the fifth county commissioner. Lonnie Roberts, a pro-life former truck driver, represents the conservative eastern Multnomah exurbs. A big man with large-frame glasses and a wide plane of a face, Roberts told me he would have gone to the media if he had been told of the marriage plan in advance. He dislikes the idea of gay marriage, but the way the county enacted it bothers him even more: "I would not have stood for the clandestine approach...
...Democratic Party is also livid. Because the county lost control of the timetable, opponents did indeed have time to file for upcoming races. Attorney General Myers and two of the Multnomah commissioners, Rojo de Steffey and Naito, are now embroiled in contested races. So is Supreme Court Justice Rives Kistler, the only openly gay high-court judge in the U.S., who was unopposed before March 3. "The process was so dumbed up that it has been a distraction," says Democratic pollster Lisa Grove. "In the end, I'm not sure whose side it helps...