Gay Marriage In Oregon, We Need To Vote

This came to me from my friend David Crowe from Restore America:



The Challenge Before Us

Status of Initiatives 144-145-146
April 25, 2008


Of growing concern to the Concerned Oregonians Leadership Team, including Hub Leaders and our Circulators, is the diminishiing time to gather Initiative Petition signatures for Initiatives 144 and 145. Many have asked why it is taking so long. The below synopsis of the history and current challenges to Oregonian's right to VOTE on the two most culturally devastating and detrimental bills in Oregon history is provided for your information, prayer, and action.

The Early Battle

At the end of the Legislative Session last summer, State law allowed only 90 days to turn in 55,000 valid signatures on each of two Referendums (303 and 304) in order to place by HB 2007 and SB 2 on the November 2008 Ballot. The date for submission of those signatures was September 26th.
Former State Senator Marylin Shannon, formed an organization called Defense of Marriage, Again and filed the two original referendums.

With the encouragement of several well known Oregon leaders, I formed Concerned Oregonians to aid Senator Shannon in the collection of signatures. Of the 63,000 signatures that were delivered to the Elections Division on each referendum, approximately 50,000 were gathered by Concerned Oregonians.
Confronting the State of Oregon

With the determined action of Christians throughout Oregon, we DID get the signatures. The Elections Division, however, along with several County Clerks, unlawfully removed just enough valid signatures to ensure we would not meet the state requirement. With the sacrificial aid of several volunteers, we commenced a time consuming journey in October and November in concert with the Alliance Defense Fund, to find and persuade unlawfully invalidated signers to become plaintifs in the law suit that was filed in early December, and granted a hearing on December 28th. On that date the District Federal Judge denied HB 2007 from becoming law on January 1st, and scheduled Feb 1st, for a full hearing.

From October through January, the entire effort at the behest of ADF was conducted by myself and a team of Concerned Oregonians volunteers.
Refiling as Initiatives

On February 1, the day of the Federal Court hearing in Portland, Senator Shannon indicated to the media that she would be filing two initiatives so the people could VOTE on both bills. Shortly thereafter she wrote a guest editorial for The Oregonian confirming same. She also changed the name of her organization from Defense of Marriage, Again, to "Let Oregon Vote" and advised me that her legal effort was well underway with several state legislators committed to be Chief Petitioners.

On February 29th Initiative 144 was filed in order to place HB 2007 on the November Ballot. Initiative 145 was filed the following Monday, March 3rd.

Those dates commenced a process under Oregon Law that we cannot change.

The Ballot Title Certification Process

The Attorney General has 10 business days from the date of filing the Initiatives, to prepare a 'draft ballot'. The draft ballot for 144 was announced on March 10th, and 145 on the 11th.

Then commences a 10 business days window for public 'comment' meaning that individuals or organizations with their attorneys can file legal papers objecting to the draft wording of the AG. Basic Rights Oregon, and the ACLU attorney, as expected, filed their objections the very last day, March 24th.

The Attorney General then has another 10 business days to present to the Secretary of State a 'certified ballot title' with explanatory letter. That occurred on April 8th, at which time an appeal period of 10 more business days is allowed for 'any elector' (In this case Basic Rights Oregon and the ACLU) "may petition the (OR) Supreme Court for a different title." That ended at 5PM on April 22nd, at which time BRO and the ACLU appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court.

(This same process applies to Initiatives 145 and 146)
The Oregon Supreme Court

The AG's Ballot Wording for 144 and 145 is now before the Oregon Supreme Court, a court with the most openly 'gay' Justices of any state supreme court in the nation.

This Court could decide quickly - which is unlikely without pressure from the public - leaving us about the same amount of time they allowed for the Defense of Marriage Coalition to come up with over 100,000 signatures, or...they could take their time, which would make it very, very hard if not impossible to come up with those signatures, unless we are extremely well organized throughout the State with many churches onboard, their congregations informed and ready to sign the petitions.
Our Challenge:

Initiative 144 is legally flawed and apparently beyond use. Now corrected, it has been refiled, by Marylin Shannon, as Initiative 146.

The process described above is underway on 146, and it may well be too late to get to the people for signature and then to the Elections Division by the deadline, which is July 3rd.

The likelihood is that we will have just enough time to get enough signatures for 145 on the ballot, but not 146.
The Arm of the LORD is not too short!

The need now is for steadfastness, not faintheartedness, faith, not doubt and unbelief. God loves to work miracles especially when the unbelieving think it is impossible.

If Christians around the state arise to meet the challenge, we can obtain the 100+ thousand signatures in only a few weeks, but we will have to believe God, do what is necessary to prevail, and pray the LORD will spur the Oregon Supreme to act 'expeditiously' as the law requires, with no excuses.

Please stand with all those in Restore America and Concerned Oregonians who have worked diligently but have had no control over the legal work, the filings, and the judges. Fortunately, He does! Ask the brethren everywhere, including our pastors, to pray that the Body of Christ does not lose heart.

Pray for Marylin Shannon. She has labored in sickness and pressure, and I know this is burdensome for her. Pray for all of us, and the Body of Christ in Oregon. If we press on and do not lose heart, this could become the greatest victory in Oregon history....and all... to the Glory of God.

Sincerely,

David Crowe
Restore America

Oh My Aching Back!

Sunday morning, after choir stood on the risers for 40 minutes BEFORE first service, then 45 minutes during first service, my back completely seized up and I was wobbling back to my pew seat like a 98 year old man.

Ok, so why should anyone care? My friend Dan has the worst back problem of anyone in history and he suffers daily and this is a guy who is not overweight, in bad physical condition or anything like that, he has just been "blessed" with a bad back, and I get a little tiny glimpse of his pain when something like Sunday happens.

How many of you reading this suffer from the same? I workout pretty darn hard core, 5 days a week and sometimes 6, so I am in the best physical shape of my life, so it isn't that, I just can't stand in one place for more than about 15 minutes max.

I am thinking I can't do the choir thing anymore.

Now, if you are a regular to this blog and or my church Salem Evangelical, the question is: if I were to leave choir, would it be right for me to come back and sing the solo on the two songs I sing with the choir two or three times a year, specifically "Saved the Day" and "We Are United"? Or, should another choir member take that over if I leave? I am not asking because I feel I "own" them, I just wondered if there should be a policy of "you must be in choir to sing these songs".

Lastly, the only relief I got was from my MARQUIS SPA!!! Seriously, at 104 degrees, and the jets all turned on to my little corner, it did some recovery work on my back.

The one pictured below is our model, the Mirage plus the next photo is our waterfall feature.

Isn't This Fun? The Democrats Keep Bashing Away!

I actually got this from an Obama supporter! Haha! Rush Limbaugh's rather dubious "operation chaos" is actually working.

John McCain is now either tied or leading in polls over either Democrat as they just keep killing each other.

Now if only we could get Fred D. Thompson to get back into it!!!

GO FRED '08

WE WILL NEVER CONTROL OUR BORDERS!

Want to know why? It's been tried before:

Ok seriously, on to more important stuff, I just needed a laugh today.

Last night my friend Dan, went home to Heaven. He was 49. It started as a little spot on his lung, and quickly it became cancer everywhere and he went fast.

Through it all, his biggest concern was that he would remain a witness for Christ. He was.

The last 48 hours of his life were spent in a coma type state, unconscious. This brings me to a thought about when a Christian is in this state.

This is not Biblical nor theological, just Bill-ical. I was thinking as I was praying for Dan Sunday night, as he lays there unconscious, his body basically dead, but his brain and his soul, or spirit still alive, what is his spirit doing? I have had this thought before. I can't see God allowing our souls to be in torment, as the body was at that point, and I also can't see the soul being asleep or not aware, yet it has not left the body yet, so, my thinking is this: God allows the soul or spirit to be in a state of some sort of bliss. Not quite in Heaven but not quite still here. Jesus said "it is finished" when He "gave up his Spirit". So far in my limited amount of interaction with people dying, they have all done something, said something even in comatose states, have shouted something, just before their actual death. Could that be the spirit inside them, telling the body and we around the body "it is finished"?

Kind of rambling but just thinking out loud.

Dan is in Heaven and probably speaking with Jesus right now! I know he loved Missions and now he will be able to see the fruits of his work and the ongoing work that he supported. I will miss Dan greatly, but am so excited that soon we will all be reunited!

(Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven (The Empyrean); from Gustave Doré's illustrations to the Divine Comedy, Paradiso Canto)

Doing my Celebrity thing!!

In my VERY difficult radio job I am sometimes required to hang out with celebrities.

Saturday night I was hosting a concert by the Chad Mitchell Trio. Now MOST of my readers will not recognize that group, but if you are over 60 and a folk music fan than you might remember them. I remember a few of their songs and tv appearances when I was a youngster but they really never made it big.

They broke up in 1965, their last appearance in the Salem was in 1964. In 2005 the got back together and do about 12 shows a year, this week one of them was at the Historic Elsinore Theatre.

Tom Paxton opened with some left wing political songs and some nice folk songs. Then the trio came on after a short video of them on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1960. The guys are all nearly 70 but they really sounded great! I enjoyed them tremendously and after the show they were very gracious and thankful for me and my radio station promoting the show.

The picture above is me with Joe Frazier of the Trio and we had a nice chat along with Mike Kobluk and Chad Mitchell.

So, now I have to suffer a bit more, my new Marquis Spa comes on Friday and I am forced to take it for the price of promoting it on the radio.

Ho hum, life is sooooo hard.