By Christian Messer

I sat down with Basic Rights Oregon’s (BRO) Executive Director Jeana Frazzini and Development Coordinator Juan Martinez to discuss what their strategy was for the 2012 election in Oregon, regarding marriage equality. This interview was done just as the Prop 8 case in California was kicking off. After discussing id Magazine and what we were looking to do, we jumped into our discussion:

id Magazine: Our theme for our issue is “Gay Marriage…Where Oregon is Headed” and we thought BRO would be the best place to start. Mostly because we’d like to shed light on your strategy and answer a few questions the community at large has.

Jeana Frazzini: I think it’s really timely, especially considering that just this week the challenge to Prop 8 in California kicked off. It’ll be interesting to follow it, as that process unfolds. It’s definitely going to be a long process, as we have learned from our own marriage court case here.

I don’t know if you know that Juan and his partner Byron were the lead plaintiffs.

How was that, it must of been pretty trying.

Juan Martinez: It was…it was something that I had never done in my life. To be outspoken about my life, you know my personal situation, my relationship. To tell our stories to a wider audience. This whole thing started in 2005, which is when we agreed to sign on as plaintiffs. It made me nervous at first, but Byron and I talked and talked about it over and over again. We both agreed this was an opportunity to stand up for what was right. To take this chance to help make a difference in any way that we could.

Because he and I are committed as a couple and we want to have the rights that come along with marriage equality. We truly believe in that and we won’t settle for anything less. We love each other so much and we want to take care of each other in every way that we can. so that’s why we stuck it out for the four years the lawsuit took it’s course. It just wrapped up the beginning of last year, when we were denied appellate level.

Frazzini: It’s interesting because the fact that the Oregon Supreme Court refused to hear the case Martinez vs. Kulongoski is in part in answer to your question, how did we land at the decision to appeal the marriage amendment in 2012, the decision and the timeline is because of what’s possible here. Last year, it was incredibly exciting to see the progress that was made, just by some of the setbacks around the country. Places like Iowa where there’s marriage equality now and Connecticut, New Hampshire and so forth.

In Oregon we have our own unique path, we don’t have the opportunity to address the issue in the courts. That door closed to us with the Martinez case being refused by the Supreme Court. We don’t have a legislator that can do this for us, it’s enshrined in the constitution that marriage is between one man and one woman. So the only way to undo that is with a public vote. The voters are going to have to amend the constitution to create marriage equality. That is something that has not been attempted anywhere in the country, to bring a proactive marriage equality measure will be something new.

It’s always been on our opposition’s timeline, it’s always been in the heat of having to defend ourselves; whether it was the marriage amendment in 2004 or any of the awful anti-gay ballot measures that faced in Oregon for 20 years. This is really the first time where we get to lay the groundwork and do this on our terms. It’s clear that, for us, it is important to take the time to lay a strong foundation of support, to not rush into a political fight when we know that in order to change people’s hearts and minds, they have to have this space and the opportunity to have heartfelt conversations with the people in their lives about why marriage matters; what it means to care for someone, to love and commit to somebody for the rest of your life, and to do the tough work of changing hearts and minds so that we get to a place where we’ve got the majority of the public in Oregon behind us.

2012 is in some ways trying to strike that balance of the urgency of securing the freedom to marry for our families, and at the same time to taking the time necessary to do that in a way that we know we can succeed. There are also considerations like the fact that it’s a Presidential election year and you get a much stronger progressive turnout at the ballot during a Presidential election year. The work started in 2009, the conversations have begun, the community engagement is happening and we’re committed to growing that involvement substantially this year. Getting to the point where we can collect the signatures to put it on the ballot starting in 2011, we’ll need to start that process and see it through to 2012.

Do you have a footprint in each county in the state?

Frazzini: Well we’re striving to, you know, we are a statewide organization, and I say that knowing what a challenge it is to fulfill. Given the economic times, we’ve been impacted like everyone else so we have left a couple of key positions open that we’re now hoping early this year to refill one of those positions is our organizer based in Eugene. We have volunteer teams in five counties; we have organizers who are assigned work that touches pretty much every region of the state. I travel the state a couple times a year; we do both community events that are kind of a garden party series. We also meet with editorial boards of newspapers; we work to get out to all of the Pride celebrations that are happening around the state. It will take engagement in every one of our 36 counties to run a proactive ballot measure campaign on marriage equality.

One of the questions I’ve had is how are we going to flip the message from a religious battle and flip it on it’s ear and approach it from being a human rights issue?

Frazzini: I think that the way that we address, first of all we have for far too long we’ve let our opposition define what the position of communities of faith are. We need to lift up the voices of fair-minded communities of faith and there are plenty that recognize the full humanity gay and transgender people.

Yes! We see them in the Pride parade: probably the largest section of the parade.

Frazzini: Yeah, waves upon waves of them, I know! It’s wonderful. The truth is that this issue is not about winning a logical argument or debate; it’s about connecting with people with the values we all share. It’s about love, it’s about commitment, it’s about that marriage says we’re family like no other word. Marriage establishes a child’s place in the world. We have not had the honest conversation about what marriage means outside of a political battle, so people have made decisions about our lives based on political rhetoric and being forced to choose on the marriage amendment in the span of three or four months. What we’re talking about is in some ways incredibly revolutionary and very challenging, which is: Folks, we’ve got three years before this question comes up as a political yes or no question.

We’ve got to take the time starting now to start the conversation and to say to the people in our lives who – we maybe don’t know where they’re at on this issue or maybe we’re afraid and we know they’re not with us and we want to change that – it is up to each one of us whether we’re gay or straight for our loved ones and our allies, our friends and family who are not LGBT identified who get that this is an issue of fundamental fairness and it’s about love. We need to have those conversations so that the people in our lives are making a thoughtful decision knowing what it means to us in advance of a political decision on a ballot campaign.

Martinez: This past summer we had the opportunity to knock on doors to have conversations, face-to-face conversations with voters here in Portland, in five counties. I was working in the Metro area here, and it was interesting to have conversations with people who come from very traditional religious background saying to me that, “Well, marriage, marriage is a religious sanctimony (this should be sacrament, but if it’s a quote and you want to leave it put (sic) after it)…” and this and that. Just taking the moment to ask them, “So it sounds like you really care about the ability to take care of your family, to love the ones that you love and to provide for your family any way, shape or form.”

We need to make that connection, to make them understand that we want the same thing that everyone else has and wholly deserves to have. So it was interesting, they weren’t saying, “Leave my doorway,” they were taking the literature and saying, “You know what, I’m going to think about this. I still hold my position, and I appreciate the conversation.” That was my experience and that is what gives me hope that this educational campaign has what it takes to really change hearts and minds.

Frazzini: Yes, and I think at the same time it’s important to emphasize that the freedom to marry does not in any way, shape or form interfere with the freedom of religion. Today if you had a Jewish couple knock on the door of the Catholic church and say, “We want to be married in your church,” it’s fully within the church’s right to say, “I’m sorry, but we will only provide a marriage ceremony for folks who are members of our church, our denomination,” right? So that would apply with allowing same sex couples the right to legally marry in Oregon, it would change no church’s right to say, “This is not within our beliefs, we can’t perform a marriage of a same sex couple.” Nothing in the freedom of religion would change should the change to fully recognize our families. That’s a critical distinction, because there is a clear difference between marriage within the context of a religious ceremony and marriage within the context of the legal rights and responsibilities that our government controls.

Yes, and I recall many times hearing friends, celebrities etc. say, “Oh I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me that our commitment is for real. It’s just a piece of paper.” Now, I understand as do a lot of the public, no it’s not just a piece of paper. There’re tons of rights and privileges that come with it. There are what, 2,200 rights it grants married couples?

Frazzini: I can’t recall, but I think on the state level it’s about 500 and the federal level it’s about 1,200 legal rights and responsibilities that come along with it. It certainly differs a little bit from state to state. It is significant both in terms of the legal protections, but also the respect and dignity that comes with marriage. The truth is that marriage is not for everyone, the issue overall is not necessarily the top issue for everyone in the LGBT community, that’s really clear.

The bottom line is that it is an issue of fundamental fairness; it is an issue in which it is one of the few remaining places in law where there is an explicit law exception where one group of people is treated differently under the law than another. That’s not to say there’re not all sorts of forms of discrimination that continue to persist in our society from racism to classicism and ageism. But this is about it when you look at the letter of the law, we’re saying as a state in our constitution that everybody enjoys the same rights and privileges in the State of Oregon, except for same sex couples and their families, somehow your commitment doesn’t meet the muster, and that’s not right.

Do you think that…I know with Maine one of things that came up was that quite a few bloggers and people were upset by the fact that the National DNC didn’t do more to help that campaign. I know it differs from state to state on how much support you get, but do you think because it’s a Presidential election that we will have a spotlight on us and we will get that support we need?

Frazzini: Right. I think that I am concerned at what I understand was the case in Maine, where the organizers on the ground for the national democratic party were not engaging in that campaign. It’s something that as we look to build the strongest possible coalition for the work here in Oregon that we’ll be working to build relationships and find ways to partner. Whether it’s with the DNC groups or our partners in Oregon progressive movement more broadly. I will say that we do have strong support within Oregon’s democratic party, there’s already strong support at the state and county level. We’re seeing marriage equality resolutions passed by the boards, which is really exciting.

I don’t expect, this has got to be a community effort, there’s not one organization that’s going to take care of this. It’s a community responsibility and that goes for at the organizational level and the individual level. I think we all have a personal responsibility regardless of how we identify to right this wrong. I think we will continue to see this effort build and gain momentum and see more visibility for the broad support that the freedom to marry has in Oregon. I think that’s what’s going to get us to a place where 2012 is a realistic time for a ballot campaign.

That is going to be the way this is going to be won, the one-on-one conversations, winning the hearts and minds.

Frazzini: Yes…Actually we have some incredible tools that we’d love to share with your readers, given your presence online, the ability to link to this stuff is wonderful we have the MarriageMattersOregon.org

id Mag: Yes! We found that…Thank you, we’re certainly sharing those with our readers. Thank you both for taking the time for us!