Marriage equality is now the law of the land in the great state of Oregon, at long last!

Hur­rah for equal­i­ty! Moments ago, U.S. Dis­trict Judge Michael McShane hand­ed down a rul­ing declar­ing that Ore­gon’s pro­hi­bi­tion on mar­riages between LGBT cou­ples vio­lates the equal pro­tec­tion clause of the Unit­ed States Con­sti­tu­tion. He also refused to stay his deci­sion and allow a nation­al right wing orga­ni­za­tion to inter­vene in the case. That means cou­ples can begin get­ting mar­ried… today!

“Ore­gon’s mar­riage laws weigh on the plain­tiffs in ways less tan­gi­ble, yet no less painful. The laws leave the plain­tiffs and their fam­i­lies feel­ing degrad­ed, humil­i­at­ed, and stig­ma­tized,” Judge McShane wrote in his twen­ty-six page decision.

His con­clu­sion was striking.

I am aware that a large num­ber of Ore­go­ni­ans, per­haps even a major­i­ty, have reli­gious or moral objec­tions to expand­ing the def­i­n­i­tion of civ­il mar­riage (and there­by expand­ing the ben­e­fits and rights that accom­pa­ny mar­riage) to gay and les­bian families.

It was’ these same objec­tions that led to the pas­sage of Mea­sure 36 in 2004. Gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­cans, my own includ­ed, were raised in a world in which homo­sex­u­al­i­ty was believed to be a moral per­ver­sion, a men­tal dis­or­der, or a mor­tal sin. I remem­ber that one of the more pop­u­lar play­ground games of my child­hood was called “smear the queer” 7 and it was played with great zeal and with­out a momen­t’s thought to today’ s polit­i­cal correctness.

On a dark­er lev­el, that same world­view led to an envi­ron­ment of cru­el­ty, vio­lence, and self-loathing. It was but 1986 when the Unit­ed States Supreme Court jus­ti­fied, on the basis of a “mil­len­nia of moral teach­ing,” the impris­on­ment of gay men and les­bian women who engaged in con­sen­su­al sex­u­al acts. Bow­ers, 478 U.S. at 197 (Burg­er, C.J., con­cur­ring), over­ruled by Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 578.

Even today I am remind­ed of the lega­cy that we have bequeathed today’ s gen­er­a­tion when my son looks dis­mis­sive­ly at the sweater I bought him for Christ­mas, and, with a roll of his eyes, says “Dad … that is so gay.” It is not sur­pris­ing then that many of us raised with such a world­view would wish to pro­tect our beliefs and our fam­i­lies by turn­ing to the bal­lot box to enshrine in law those tra­di­tions we have come to val­ue. But just as the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­tects the expres­sion of these moral view­points, it equal­ly pro­tects the minor­i­ty from being dimin­ished by them. It is at times dif­fi­cult to see past the shrill­ness of the debate. Accu­sa­tions of reli­gious big­otry and ban­ners read­ing “God Hates Fags” make for a messy democ­ra­cy and, at times, test the First Amend­ment resolve of both sides.

At the core of the Equal Pro­tec­tion Clause, how­ev­er, there exists a foun­da­tion­al belief that cer­tain rights should be shield­ed from the bark­ing crowds; that cer­tain rights are sub­ject to own­er­ship by all and not the stake hold of pop­u­lar trend or shift­ing majorities.

My deci­sion will not be the final word on this sub­ject, but on this issue of mar­riage I am struck more by our sim­i­lar­i­ties than our differences.

I believe that if we can look for a moment past gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty, we can see in these plain­tiffs noth­ing more or less than our own fam­i­lies. Fam­i­lies who we would expect our Con­sti­tu­tion to pro­tect, if not exalt, in equal mea­sure. With dis­cern­ment we see not shad­ows lurk­ing in clos­ets or the stereo­types of what was once believed; rather, we see fam­i­lies com­mit­ted to the com­mon pur­pose of love, devo­tion, and ser­vice to the greater community.

Where will this all lead? I know that many sug­gest we are going down a slip­pery slope that will have no moral bound­aries. To those who tru­ly har­bor such fears, I can only say this: Let us look less to the sky to see what might fall; rather, let us look to each oth­er… and rise.

Activists for LGBT rights hailed the ruling.

“We are delight­ed that Judge Michael McShane has final­ly brought a decade of uncer­tain­ty to a close with his rul­ing,” said Rea Carey, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Nation­al Gay and Les­bian Task Force Action Fund. “Thou­sands of LGBTQ cou­ples will be cel­e­brat­ing today across Ore­gon and around the nation. We are anoth­er step clos­er to mar­riage equal­i­ty every­where for everyone.”

“Today Judge McShane did the right thing for fam­i­lies, affirm­ing that the denial of mar­riage to com­mit­ted same-sex cou­ples in Ore­gon is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” said Thalia Zepatos, direc­tor of pub­lic engage­ment at Free­dom to Marry.

“In recog­ni­tion of the strong sup­port for mar­riage among Ore­go­ni­ans, no one with legal stand­ing, includ­ing our state Attor­ney Gen­er­al, want­ed to go down in his­to­ry as defend­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion.” (Much to the dis­plea­sure of right wing groups, Ore­gon Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ellen Rosen­blum had sided with the plain­tiffs in the case, instead of defend­ing Mea­sure 36, the amend­ment that barred LGBT cou­ples from wedding.)

“Across the coun­try, the courts agree: same-sex cou­ples and their fam­i­lies need the pro­tec­tions of mar­riage, and anti-mar­riage laws are inde­fen­si­ble. With over sev­en­ty mar­riage cas­es now mak­ing their way through the courts, today’s deci­sion in Ore­gon under­scores that all of Amer­i­ca is ready for the free­dom to marry.”

Ore­gon’s senior U.S. Sen­a­tor, Ron Wyden, sent out an email cel­e­brat­ing the deci­sion, not­ing he has been a long­time sup­port­er of mar­riage equality.

“I’m proud to say that I stood up for mar­riage equal­i­ty when I ran for the U.S. Sen­ate in 1995. That was­n’t a pop­u­lar view then, and I’m thrilled to see so many Ore­go­ni­ans — so many Amer­i­cans — come around to the view that every­one should have the free­dom to enjoy life, lib­er­ty and the pur­suit of happiness.”

“As we take anoth­er step on the path to progress today, know that you can always count on me to stand up for civ­il rights for all Americans.”

Judge McShane’s deci­sion arrived just a few days after a fed­er­al mag­is­trate judge in Ida­ho declared the Gem State’s pro­hi­bi­tion against mar­riage equal­i­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and a lit­tle over two years since Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire signed into law a bill mak­ing mar­riage equal­i­ty the law of the land in Wash­ing­ton. (The bill was upheld by Ever­green State vot­ers sev­er­al months lat­er in a referendum).

Ida­ho’s Repub­li­can gov­er­nor and attor­ney gen­er­al have vowed to appeal the deci­sion by Judge Can­dy Dale, which was stayed late last week by a pan­el of three judges from the 9th Cir­cuit Court of Appeals. Due to the stay in that case, LGBT cou­ples in Ida­ho are still unable to wed. But the State of Ore­gon does not plan to ask the 9th Cir­cuit to stay Judge McShane’s deci­sion. McShane’s order is effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly, which means mar­riage equal­i­ty has arrived in the Beaver State.

We look for­ward to see­ing Ore­gon LGBT cou­ples tak­ing advan­tage of their new­found free­dom to mar­ry today and in the days ahead.