Gay marriage wins round in court fight.

Byline: From Register-Guard and news service reports

SALEM - Oregon will become the nation's second state to officially register gay marriage licenses, after the Oregon Court of Appeals refused Friday to order a hold on the process.

But state lawyers dismissed the registration as just an administrative act that wouldn't authenticate the 3,022 marriage licenses issued by Multnomah County earlier this year, because the Oregon Supreme Court has not considered a pending lawsuit on the issue.

Gay rights groups and same-sex couples in Eugene and elsewhere who obtained the marriage licenses, though, hailed the appeals court's actions as a victory.

Friday's action upholds an earlier decision by Multnomah County Circuit Judge Frank Bearden, who ordered the state to process the existing licenses issued to gay couples.

In the same ruling, Bearden ordered Multnomah County not to issue any more licenses to same-sex couples until there could be a binding response to the gay marriage question from either legislators or the state Supreme Court.

To date, only Massachusetts recognizes gay marriage, although Vermont recognizes civil unions. California, New Jersey and Hawaii have domestic partnership laws that provide certain legal rights to gay relationships.

State recognition of the licenses as valid presumably would entitle gay couples to the same state benefits accorded to heterosexual married couples, such as health care benefits and the right to sue on behalf of a spouse.

Kelly Clark, the lawyer for the Defense of Marriage Coalition, which has led the fight against gay marriage in Oregon, agreed with the state that the Court of Appeals' order was purely procedural.

``Today's decision by the Court of Appeals does not make these marriage licenses valid,'' Clark said in a statement. ``It simply says the state should file them, with the decision about their validity to be decided another day. The fact remains these licenses were issued in violation of Oregon statutes. We think they were and are void.''

But Rebekah Kassell, a spokeswoman for Basic Rights Oregon, which led the gay marriage drive, said gay couples have gone through the same steps to marry as others.

``There's no reason those couples and their children should be denied the rights and protections of marriage that any other couple in Oregon receives,'' Kassell said.

Gay marriage foes say the state's founders never intended to sanction such marriages, citing a law dating to territorial days defining marriage as a contract ``entered into in person by males at least 17 years of age and females at least 17 years of age.''

They've mounted what appears to be a successful drive to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot outlawing gay marriage.

They turned in a record 244,000 signatures last week, far more than 100,000 needed to send the measure to voters. State officials have until Aug. 1 to validate the signatures.

News of the decision gave hope to same-sex couples who obtained marriage licenses before the court ordered a halt.

Kate Hill, a psychiatric social worker at Sacred Heart Medical Center, got the news via e-mail from Basic Rights Oregon and immediately called her partner of 22 years, Jennifer Meyer.

"I'm not sure what the larger impact is, but I was excited when I read it," she said. "It sounds like good news."

Gretchen Miller, an administrative law judge in Eugene who married her partner in March, said the appeals court's decision continues a string of rulings that say gay couples have the same right to marriage under the state constitution as heterosexual couples. In fact, Bearden relied on previous appeals court decisions in making his ruling.

"It suggests to me that the Court of Appeals meant what they said in those last couple of cases that we were all relying on, and that they thought that's what the constitution says and means," she said. "At this point I'd say that we're up to - if I'm counting correctly - five serious legal opinions that say that's what the constitution means, and no - zero - serious legal opinions of any equivalent sort of analysis or depth that say the opposite."

Miller said it seems likely the case will be appealed to the state Supreme Court and that by issuing a ruling without an opinion the appeals court was simply trying to move the case along. She said it's unlikely the case will be heard before the November elections, when gay marriage is expected to be a contentious issue.

Whether the Oregon decision will simply fuel the debate over same-sex marriage and energize its opponents remains to be seen. The U.S. Senate on Friday opened debate on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and a ballot measure calling for a state ban in Oregon seems headed for the ballot.

"I'm thinking it will be a whole lot harder to revoke all these licenses if they're recorded," Hill said. "Maybe that's a naive assumption, I don't know, but anything that goes in our direction seems like it's going to help us in the long run."

Steve Wagenhoffer, a gay father who married his partner of 13 years on the first day Multnomah County began offering gay marriage licenses, was overjoyed after hearing of the appeals court action.

Wagenhoffer said he knows first hand what that certificate could mean in terms of his rights as a husband and parent.

When his child, whom he adopted as an infant with his partner, fell sick, Wagenhoffer, 42, rushed to the hospital.

``They told me I couldn't come in because my child's 'father' was already there,'' he said, referring to the reaction he got from the hospital staff.

Register-Guard reporter Greg Bolt and Associated Press writer Charles Beggs contributed to this report.