Hey everyone. As we look past the disappointment of the election results, and into our future as citizens who care about our country and communities, we'll be helped by finding opportunities to take positive actions towards a better tomorrow. In Portland, we lament the passing of Measure 36, but there is something to be done.

Right now, Basic Rights Oregon and the ACLU are engaged in a lawsuit that they hope can bring down the ammendment. While we should all cross our fingers for a positive outcome there, that victory, if it comes, will surely be derided as an action by "activist judges" and won't carry with it the force of a grass-roots level victory.

With this in mind, I propose a civil disobedience campaign to break Measure 36. This is how it would work:

Gay and Lesbian couples should continue to be married by supportive individuals in religious and secular ceremonies. They should file applications for marriage licenses and maintain proof of those filings.

With the assistance of supportive CPA's (or on their own) married couples should file their Oregon tax returns jointly, and refuse any requests by the state treasury to resubmit or pay fines.

If enough people do this, the state and counties will be faced with having to enforce the new law, which in of itself is unenforceable. The law effectively states that men cannot be married to men and women cannot by married to women; however, this can be easily disproven by simply marrying anyway. Those opposed to gay marriage will have only one recourse, the denial of those marriages, at which point the married couple respond "No, we ARE married." At which point the opponent says, "You can't get married." and the couple say "Yes, in fact we just did." The act of marrying cannot be refuted unless the couple that is being married accept that they are not allowed to be.

It is my hope that this campaign will exhaust the Defense of Marriage Coalition et. al. by the simple fact that it removes their litmus test for success. To put it another way, we won't oppose their arguments, but instead we will step aside and allow them to hit the pavement, much like an Aikido expert allows his assailant to throw himself into the ground.

Now, on the issue of legal ramifications of not paying taxes in the manner the state expects, there is the potential for some penalty; however, I expect that if this is a campaign of hundreds or thousands, rather than a few dozen, it will be too much work for the state to pursue everyone, and may be able to break (at least that part) of the marriage ban.