Civil rights and the people who hate them

Oregon Senator Jeff Kruse said, in regards to the civil unions bill passed this week in the Oregon Senate, the bill is "another step down the road to Armageddon." He then went on to equate homosexuality to pedophilia. Sen. Kruse, you disgust me. Your hatred and spite and ignorance are an affront to the basic dignity and humanity of every Oregonian. Your blatantly unjust and hate-spawned "logic" is the equivalent of equating Islam with terrorists or equating Christianity with the Aryan Nation.

Bravo to Republican Senators Ben Westlund and Frank Morse for recognizing basic human rights and doing the right thing for the people of Oregon. "We are on the front lines of the civil rights struggle of this generation," Westlund said. "One of the freedoms that should be afforded to all human beings is the freedom to form families." Thank you, gentlemen, for having the courage to stand up with your Democratic colleagues do the honorable thing, especially when it's not the dogmatic Party Line. You remind me that there may yet be a glimmer of hope that the Republican Party might return to the ideals of leaders like Senator Hatfield, Governor McCall, and Clay Myers when they fought to remove to remove segregation from the party platform and advocated for civil rights.

House Speaker Karen Minnis said that the bill will not come to a vote in "her" chamber. "Her" chamber? As a citizen and voter in Oregon, I vehemently object. That is emphatically NOT "her" chamber. The House chamber, as well as the Senate chamber and the rest of the capitol, are the property of the people of Oregon. Neither she, as Speaker of the House, nor the Governor, nor any other elected official has the right to claim ownership over the halls of the capitol. To do so is the heights of arrogance that have come to typify the current political leadership both here in Oregon and nationally.

Sen. Krause and Speaker Minnis, have you forgotten that you as elected officials are public servants? That you serve at the consent of the governed? You don't own that seat - the people own it. The real owners of that seat and that building and that institution have generously offered you the privilege of using that seat to represent them. You abuse that privilege in your small-minded arrogance and spite. Your actions are deeply hurtful to the very people you were supposedly elected to serve.