Yesterday, Basic Rights Oregon with Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams and his former partner, Greg Eddie filed a lawsuit.

From BRO:

At a press conference this morning, Basic Rights Oregon announced the next step in its effort to advance basic fairness through Oregon's courts.

Former Domestic Partners Greg Eddie and Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams joined Basic Rights Oregon Co-Chair Jim Morris, along with legal advisor Mark Johnson, to announce the filing of the fourth in a series of lawsuits based on the 1998 Oregon Court of Appeals Tanner v. OHSU decision.

This suit, together with the three previous cases, are necessary to address the discrimination faced by gay and lesbian Oregonians as a result of the state's failure to come into compliance with Tanner. "Bringing a lawsuit is never a first choice," said Adams. "But we both feel strongly that basic fairness is a cause worth fighting for – not just for ourselves but for all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Oregonians who face discrimination each and every day."

In Tanner, the court ruled that the protections of Oregon's constitution extend to gay and lesbian families and that the state could not disfavor them based on their inability to marry. Under the statutes that govern Oregon's Public Employee Retirement System, when a married PERS employee divorces, a court has the clear right to order PERS to divide the retirement account between the divorcing parties. Such divisions are in fact common between divorcing couples.

"Because Adams and Eddie are unable to divorce - having been barred from marrying - their right to divide Adams' PERS account is denied. Their suit therefore contends that the PERS statutes are unconstitutional, and asks the Multnomah County Circuit Court to grant the litigants the same protections that the law grants couples who were allowed to marry," said Johnson.

"Divorce is an unfortunate but crucial legal protection for many Americans," remarked Eddie. "Whether straight and married, or same-sex partners, the process of dissolving a long-term relationship is always difficult. And we believe that the state has an interest in assisting all divorcing couples to do so as equally and fairly as possible. At the end of our 11-year partnership, we went through the arduous process of dividing all of our joint assets 50/50. But with Sam's retirement - we hit a brick wall."

Read the rest here.

Labels: basic rights oregon, gay rights, lawsuit, oregon

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 at 3:00 PM. Want to discuss? Leave a comment below.