MERCURY: How do you think your statement to the House and ensuing comments, especially from Rush Limbaugh, effected the national reproductive rights discussion?

FLUKE: I think the main thing, and my goal, is to refocus the conversation on women's health. People are become more concerned and aware that real women are effected by this policy. A lot of people didn't know that birth control is a vital need for some women with health problems, it's more than just a contraception. I think it's really helped reshift the overall discussion.

You've become this face for contraception rights over the matter of a few days. What have you learned from being thrown into the public sphere so quickly as this leader in women's rights?

It's been overwhelming, I really haven't had enough time to reflect on it yet. I'm extremely heartened by the support I've gotten from people across the country, it's amazing. To have an issue previously viewed as controversial politics thrown into the media spotlight is really important and I'm glad I could help get it to that point.

In your response to Limbaugh's "apology" you said that his attempt to silence you and other women using contraception is in vain. What are your next steps in staying involved with the national debate?

Well first, I'm going to try my hardest to graduate from law school. I'm also working with different media outlets, like the Huffington Post, to raise awareness for affordable health care benefits. I'm also working on a campaign on campuses across the country, organizing with students to make sure that they know their university could change its contraceptive insurance coverage right now.

How has this experience influenced your view on mass media/social media when dealing with political issues?

I'm disappointed in the extent that commentators have created a wealth of misinformation on this issue. A lot of people think that women are just asking for a government handout, which isn't the deal at all. This is for people who pay for private insurance already and deserve total coverage. Also, a lot of commentators think that contraception is still easy for women to attain, calling it a much ado about nothing. Unfortunately, this is also wrong.

So what does this Planned Parenthood recognition mean to you tonight?

I'm really touched to receive this award. It's also my first time at this gala, so I'm really looking forward to the entire event. Unfortunately I can't stay in Portland long enough to do much of anything, I'm actually flying out directly after the event tonight.

You're a busy lady. How are you balancing school and everything with your crazy schedule?

Not well! I'm really thankful to get some pro bono help from colleagues right now. We'll see how I manage...

Touched upon in Good Morning News, Idaho Senate joined Texas and Virginia yesterday in mandating that all pregnant women must undergo an ultrasound prior to terminating their pregnancy. While this idea alone ushered in a slew of disapproval, Idaho Senator Chuck Winder delivered a shocking kicker in yesterday's closing arguments.

"Rape and incest was used as a reason to oppose this. I would hope that when a woman goes into a physician, with a rape issue, that that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage, or was it truly caused by a rape," said Winder.

Yikes. If being raped wasn't traumatic enough, now you may be doubted by a doctor? Following a barrage of upset responses over Winder's doubt, he tried to backpedal: “I used a married woman, the idea being that as a woman or a couple, whether they be married or unmarried at the time, would want to find out if the pregnancy occurred as the product of the rape, or whether the pregnancy was unknown at the time,” Winder told The Associated Press. “There was never any intention on my part to question the honesty of a woman in cases of rape.”

Loving this timely spoof from Funny or Die:

This is a perfect example of why shifting birth control and abortion issues from being federal laws to being a "state by state" issue isn't a good way to "compromise." Unless compromise means protecting the rights of women in some states, and selling out the rights of women in others. Whatever you think about using birth control or getting an abortion, we should all be able to agree that the least important factor in a healthcare decision should be a woman's particular geographic location, right? (Well, "least important" right behind what Rick Santorum thinks her values should be) (okay, and also whether her rate of personal shame is high enough).

When we push controversial decisions like abortion rights to the states, that's when we wind up with laws chip away at rights and discriminate against certain groups of women. Like poor women, for example, since eight states allow private insurance to not cover abortion and 32 states don't allow public funds to cover all medically necessary abortions.

While the "war on women" wages in Washigton, it's actually closer to home than you might think. These days, Oregon is on the front lines: We're one of only five states that haven't passed abortion restrictions since Roe v. Wade.

A moonbase? Bizarre, ridiculous, and awesome, but "not lunacy."

Coming out swinging against birth control? Now that's INSANE. Santorum thinks states should be able to ban condoms and that using any form of birth control is immoral. According to polls, even a vast majority of Catholics (77 percent!) think using birth control is okay. A majority of all voters—including Republicans, independents, and moderates—think all employers should have to cover birth control for their workers.

Birth control has become a non-issue for most Americans because its benefits are exceedingly clear: With nearly 75 percent of women having taken the Pill at some point in their lives, almost every American man and woman and child has directly benefitted from the medical advance that Santorum believes is immoral.

Thrust into the spotlight in Capitol Hill debates and TV interviews, the insanity of finger-wagging about birth control becomes very stark. Voters who didn't quite get how clearly Santorum and supporters back theocracy over basic health and human rights are certainly figuring it out now.

And now, since this post hasn't been funny at all, here's a comic from the talented Brian McFadden.

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MERCURY: When did you hear about Komen's reversal and what was your first reaction?
DAVID GREENBERG: Well, actually, it's not necessarily a reversal. This morning I woke up to the news that the national Komen Foundation had apologized to the American people and said they would reconsider their funding policy—but they didn't say they would reinstate the money, so I think American women are going to be watching to see what they really do.

This has been a rough year for Planned Parenthood politically, why do you think you've become such a political target, recently?
Well I believe that there are the same political motivations for going after Planned Parenthood through Komen or through Congress, it's the same right wing radical folks who are trying to hurt this organization because of the their political motivations.

But Planned Parenthood has been doing this work for decades. What's changed that you're in the spotlight so much this year?
Planned Parenthood has been around for almost 100 years. The very beginning of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, who started this organization, was thrown in jail for simply talking about birth control. She published a pamphlet and sent it through the mail, so she was prosecuted for that. When she came to speak in Portland, she was thrown in jail here, as well. While it looked like the debate after Roe in 1973 was about abortion, it always was about rights for women. It was about their right to know about birth control, it was about their right to have access to the information, to delay pregnancy or prevent pregnancies they don't want. What we've seen in the last year is a more blatant return to challenging women in this country, whether it's birth control or breast exams, in some way it's a return to the original social justice issued that Margaret Sanger stood for 100 years ago.

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Forget Republican pressure to pull funding from Planned Parenthood—the nonprofit's long-time ally in fighting breast cancer, the Susan G. Komen foundation, has done the job for them, yanking $680,000 in grants from Planned Parenthood.

The Komen Foundation's reasoning is that they don't give grants to groups under local, state, or federal investigation. Planned Parenthood is in the midst of a politically motivated probe, spearheaded by a Florida Republican at the request of anti-abortion groups, that's looking into whether Planned Parenthood misspent money. The Komen Foundation has also been under pressure. As NPR reports, several conservative charities have boycotted Komen for its ties to Planned Parenthood, including one group that recalled a pink Bible it had sold to raise money for breast cancer research.

The end result of this is that women may have to pay more for breast exams, or not receive them at all. Planned Parenthood had used the Komen grant money to perform 170,000 breast cancer exams in the past five years. That's a lot of cancer-catches to throw away.

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• Just FYI.

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On the other hand, President Obama did give Roe v. Wade a pretty sweet quote as a birthday present: Yesterday, the president released a statement noting that the ruling's anniversary is a chance "continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams" and "affirm a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.”

Today the Obama Administration announced that religious institutions (except churches, mosques, synagogues and other place of worship) have to follow the same laws at the rest of America's employers when it comes to covering birth control under the new healthcare bill. Under the law, employer health care plans have to cover contraception by August of this year. That's already a requirement in 28 states (pdf), but religious groups were hoping to get an exception in the federal law for religiously-affiliated employers, meaning hospitals and universities with a religious bent wouldn't have to cover the Pill for employees. But today, Obama's Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, nope, religious affiliated institutions will get an extra year to phase in the requirements, but they must follow the new law.

In 2010, I talked with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards about the importance of birth control coverage. Check out that interview here!

A bunch of extremely mainstream education groups issued a report last week that recommends a radical idea: We need national sex ed standards in schools.

Just like we have standard recommended curriculums for math and science, we need guidelines for sex ed because, it turns out, the average American student only gets 17 hours of sex ed during the course of their 12 years of schooling and the only national sex ed programs we've ever had are abstinence only.

The report (pdf) says schools should start in the second grade, teaching seven-year-olds about the names of their body parts and how all living things reproduce and (if only they'd also recommend using this video). Fifth graders should be taught about puberty, HIV transmission, and what constitutes sexual abuse, and in junior high, kids should learn about contraception, abstinence, and gender roles, says the report.

If you're not convinced, here's a quick list of alarming factoids from the report:

• While people age 15-25 are only a quarter of American's sexually active population, they contract half of the 19 million new infections of STDs reported annually, including being more likely to contract HIV than any other age group.

• Nearly nine out of 10 LGBT students reported being harassed at school and one-third had skipped at least one day of school because they felt unsafe.

• Teens who received comprehensive sexuality education were 50 percent less likely to report a pregnancy than those who received abstinence-only education.

So it's not just gettin' it on that we're talking about... lack of sex ed is literally life and death issue.

Oregon already has state standards that mandate "medically accurate" sex ed... but teaching varies by school, since many schools don't put the time or money toward a health teacher.

Looking for a revolutionary supper club? How about a feminist DJ or a financial management class for domestic violence survivors?

Feminist Agenda PDX, a new Portland has you covered. Founders Katie Carter and Amber Rowland are former co-directors of In Other Words, the feminist bookstore, who found themselves out of a job after the bookstore restructured last year (we reported on the store's tough times in 2008) . The pair have spent the past few months starting up Feminist Agenda, a website that aims to connect Portlanders with feminist events, people, and groups with an extensive calendar and resource list.

"I think there are a lot of people who do want to get involved, but don't know how," says Carter. "Being an activist is a lot more than going to protests. It's helping keep organizations like SMYRC, Gay and Grey, and the Rock and Roll camp for Girls afloat."

Carter, originally from Chicago, says in her experience, many people in Portland identify as feminists, but that doesn't mean they actually get involved with groups that promote gender equity. "We have this critical mass of people who understand how feminism intersects with different forms of oppression, but one of the big things we see is lack of engagement. To each their own, but we hope this will give people a way to get engaged."

Feminist Agenda is hosting their launch party next Thursday with a screening of Missrepresentation, the documentary about women in media.

There's actually a surprising number of feminist events in Portland this month, including a NARAL chocolate-eating party on the same night as Feminist Agenda's launch, a discussion about abortion issues at Red and Black Cafe on January 28th, and the unveiling of a big historical exhibit about woman suffrage in Oregon. Things are heating up all of a sudden!

In other feminist video news, has everyone seen the hilarious Fotoshop by Adobé video Steve posted on MOD last week? WATCH IT NOW.

• Never forget: Pro-life silly bandz!

The Secretary of State signed off on the measure (pdf) last Thursday, so now supporters have until July to collect the 116, 284 signatures needed to get the measure on the ballot. If passed, the constitutional amendment would effectively ban state health insurance from covering abortions, meaning women covered by the Oregon Health Plan would have to pay for abortions out of pocket. One of the chief petitioners of the measure is Marilyn Shannon, who at a John McCain fundraiser in 1993, praised the woman who shot an abortion clinic doctor.

Incidents of domestic terrorism aside, Oregon has a solid pro-choice history: Since the legislature rejected a number of new anti-abortion laws last year, we're one of only 14 states where access to abortion isn't limited by any laws like that Puritanical parental-consent business, waiting periods, or requirements that women considering abortion stare at ultrasounds of their embryos.

But abortion in Oregon is still limited by one major factor: class. An abortion costs at least $450—it can be a major expense for women without health insurance. Jennifer Webster, a Eugene resident who started a local abortion-help hotline said it best when I interviewed her in 2010: "To me, it's a justice issue. Women should be able to get abortions if they need them, whether or not they can pay for them and no matter where they live. All that restrictions do is hurt the most vulnerable women in our community. A woman who really, really needs an abortion is going to get one."

I'd expect voters are more likely to approve this funding measure than the other anti-abortion measure aiming for Oregon's ballot, a personhood measure like the one that Mississippi recently rejected. But while it's not setting down any laws banning abortions, it's important to remember that cutting coverage of abortion effectively cuts off class of women from being able to make their own reproductive choices.

Mayor Sam Adams, as the New Yorker recently noted very awkwardly, is openly gay. Just as the chance to leave an anonymous voicemail for the mayor can be a revealing window into the vocal portions of the city's views on transportation and police budgets, it's an occasionally disturbing glimpse of the true feelings of Portlanders about homosexuality. We think of ourselves as living in a progressive haven, but take away the face-to-face accountability and all sorts of dark things can come bubbling up.

So how homophobic are Portlanders, given the chance to rant anonymously at a powerful, openly gay person?

I went through and counted up all the voicemails from September, October, and November and then picked out all the ones with homophobic language. The tally? Of 397 voicemails, only seven were homophobic. That includes ones with outright homophobic slurs ("You need to shut down the protestors. Watch your ass, you faggot!") to more subtle slurs against his sexuality ("You have to take time out from chasing boys and worrying about plastic bags!"). Another two voicemails had sexually derisive language that wasn't specifically homophobic ("Grow some balls!" etc). All in all, that's just over two percent of voicemails slandering the mayor sexually.

They may rag on Sam for all sorts of reasons, but 98 percent of irate Portlanders won't call out his sexual orientation as one of 'em. Is that good or bad? Clearly, zero percent homophobia is the goal here, but I think this is surprisingly low. Then again, I'm a cynic.

For example, in Egypt it was revealed that members of the military will routinely assault female protesters. Many women have reported military officers tearing off their clothes, calling them slurs, and sexually assaulting them during arrest.

BUT! That revelation led to the largest women's protest in modern Egyptian history! Thousands of women protesting the military's treatment of ladies marched to Tahrir Square.

On the homefront, Minnesota's Senate Majority Leader was backing a state constitutional amendment to
define marriage as just between a man and a woman. But then it turns out she was having an affair with a staffer, who was also married. Whoops. Luckily, Minnesota's queer community turned this news around, apologizing to the senator for ruining her marriage. Good work, team.

And in not-connected but still-worthwhile news, ABC is actually going to produce a TV show actually based around the premise that it's funny when people in skirts stand up to pee. Meanwhile, my boyfriend Louis CK has proven to actually be a stand-up man by donating some of his recently-earned $1 million to a fistula charity. No one even wants to say the word fistula, or think about what it is, so it's awesome for Louis to go out of his way to bring the issue some attention (and cash!).

In all the political and social battles over sex and gender, one thing is clear: Transgender kids have it rough. Over 80 percent of teens who think their gender doesn’t match up with their genitals contemplate suicide. But very few queer-friendly groups focus on transgender kids, in part because working with children is political controversial and can lead to the always-popular accusation of recruiting children. Portland-based TransActive is the only transgender youth nonprofit in the country with actual office space. I talked with TransActive Executive Director Jenn Burleton last week about how preventing transgender teen suicide means working with kids long before they hit puberty.

Before we get started, if you haven't read this heartwarming, tearjerking Boston Globe story about a transgender twin, break out the tissues and read it now.

MERCURY: At what age do people actually know they’re transgender?
JENN BURLETON: Parents have told us that as early as 18 months, when they would say things like, "Good girl," their kid would say, "Nooo, good boy." But the average age kids know their gender is about four and the modal age for kids to recognize that the way they're experiencing their gender identity is different than the way everyone else thinks they are is about seven. All kids have a pretty strong sense of whether they're a boy or a girl or some mix of the two. If the way you experience your gender identity matches your birth assigned gender, then there are no surprises for anybody and when you affirm that, no one says, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” But trans kids, what they express at that same time gets a lot of cultural pushback. Especially transfeminine kids. Tomboy is not a dirty word in our culture. Sissy is.

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Geez! A lot of small news bits this week about sexual politics issues. These can easily be lumped into three categories:

Bad News
Plan B is still a political issue? Are you serious? When the emergency contraception pill first came the United States, it took years to get approval and then was only allowed as a prescription drug for women over age 17. After a lawsuit revealed that the FDA's decision to not allow its over-the-counter use was made based on politics, not science, the drug was finally approved for over-the-counter use by adults. Recently, the FDA decided the pill could be used used over-the-counter by teens, too. But this week, the head of the Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the FDA's scientists, taking the unprecedented move of deciding teens wouldn't understand how to use the pills. Right.

Bad News That's Now Good News
Pennsylvania decided to do a public service ad campaign against date rape, which is a good thing to pour public dollars into because Pennsylvania has arguably the worst sexual assault laws in the country. Sadly, their resulting ad campaign didn't focus on stopping rapists, reporting assaults, or reforming their own laws, but blaming rape victims for drinking too much.

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iPhone users across the country were dismayed to discover this week that Siri, the iPhone 4's smart humanoid robot, won't bring up abortion clinics in search results. Siri can instantly find you all sorts of other things—like sex and Viagra, but ask for an abortion clinic and it comes up with nada.

Steve tried to find a Portland abortion center with his iPhone. Here's what happened:

For the record, several clinics on our side of the river offer abortions, including the Lovejoy Surgicenter, the OHSU family planning center, and the downtown women's center. All of these come up in a Google search, so it seems suspiciously like Siri is filtering its regular web search to exclude abortions. Luckily, Steve was able to resort to the old ink-and-paper phone book. He's okay now, healthy and recovering well.

Last week's cover story about young people who never want children got a lot more response than I thought it would. I know people feel strongly about their own decision to have children or not have children, but seeing the wave of responses about how the decision to have kids is either RIGHT or WRONG surprised me.

I feel like I'm in a relatively small group of people in the gray area. I know I don't want kids within the next 10 years, but never? Yikes. I don't even have any tattoos or piercings, so getting my tubes tied is a long, long way off. I think not reproducing is a highly ethical choice, but I'm no moral absolutist (my friends make fun of me for being the kind of vegetarian who eats a turkey sandwich once a month or so) and think it's okay to be selfish about some things—especially the "thing" that can be the happiest, most important part of some peoples' lives.

Part of what makes my own decision difficult is that mainstream society absolutely refuses to discuss the possibility of baby regret. People with kids can complain about losing sleep, losing money, and losing their personal lives, but it's absolutely taboo to utter regret for ever having kids. Now that we have the technology and societal freedoms to allow young people to never pop out a kid, my generation is making that life-altering decision in a conversation void. When we can only talk about the positives of bearing children, no wonder people who opt for a childfree life get flack for being weirdos.

That's why I was happy to have a friend post Dear Abby's recent survey of baby regret. According to the venerable, very vanilla advice giver, 22 percent of her readers said they regretted having kids. Though it's not a remotely scientific survey, it's worthwhile noting that there's many, many people out there who regret having kids. A scientific study of women who get sterilized when they're under 30 turned up that 20 percent of women regret the choice. Both having kids and getting sterilized are major permanent decisions—but one we're not allowed to talk about.

I'm not sure how we go about having this conversation—it seems like a dialogue that would exist best online, where people can be anonymous. But it would be nice to acknowledge in everyday babymaking discourse that regret goes both ways. It seems that for every woman who regrets getting their tubes tied, there's likely a woman who regrets having a baby. Fingers crossed I figure out what I want before winding up in either camp.

The cover story in the paper this week is about people under 30 who just don't want kids, damn it, and decide get sterilized. Everyone I've talked to who has chosen not to have children says they've faced stigma—people thinking they're selfish or broken or strange in some way. But childless families are actually on the rise. We crunched the numbers for this cute sidebar (illustrations by Carolyn Main!).

Read the full article here.

The fate of thousands of Oregonian's marital status is in the hands of Basic Rights Oregon (BRO), the LGBT rights group that has been canvassing the state since 2009 "starting conversations" about gay marriage. This month, the group is holding town halls statewide (Portland's is Sunday at the Q Center) to listen to public opinion on gay marriage. BRO is slated to announce as soon as next week whether they'll pursue gay marriage in 2012.

The sticking point is this: In order to get gay marriage in Oregon, we have to pass a constitutional amendment, which means getting a majority of voters across the entire state (hello Eastern Oregon!) on board with the idea. Voters are historical skeptical about passing any sort of constitutional amendment and gay marriage is certain to bring an expensive political battle (I believe the Oregon Family Council's words were, "If we have to fight, we're going to fight hard." Gulp.). So BRO wants to have a buffer of support before it heads into campaign season, otherwise we risk winding up with Oregon's very own Prop 8.

The problem is, the most recent polling shows a slim majority of Oregonians oppose gay marriage—roughly 48 percent of Oregonians think gay marriage should be legal. Whether 50 percent of people who will actually turn out to the polls next November will support gay marriage is the issue.

Ugh. It seems to me that it's very possible BRO will decide this week not to bring marriage to the ballot—even after years of canvassing, ads, and political legwork. And that's a shame. As a total political optimist, I think we can win this in 2012. I think this will be an issue that will pull young people and progressive Oregonians to the polls (and to the phone banks, volunteer teams, and fundraising dinners), even when voting for Obama again isn't looking very exciting. With the mainstream gushing over New York's gay marriage passage, more centrist Oregonians will get comfortable with the culture change before next November.

If BRO doesn't go for the gold, they risk alienating the fiery LGBT supporters who are already pissed off at having to wait till 2012. I think this seems like the time for Oregonians to fight for our rites.

Although boobs and bikinis still do a disappointingly reliable job of selling every product on earth, marketing outright to male-only consumers can backfire.

Dr. Pepper neatly proved this when it launched its recent "It's Not For Women" campaign for its diet soda that has only "10 manly calories." This ad, which earned Bitch magazine's douchebag decree, has been having some unexpected results:

Dr. Pepper was clearly trying to mimic the over-the-top machismo of the Wieden+Kennedy Old Spice Guy, but instead it's a pathetic example of what happens when a joke is poorly told. Instead of coming off self-mocking, it just makes Mr. Pepper look like an asshole no one—male or female—wants to associate with.

The giant stack of five minute films were all submissions to HUMP, the Mercury and Stranger porn festival that's now in its seventh year. I spent all of Saturday with five other staffers up at the Stranger officers, whittling the 52 films into a select 20 or so that will be screened for audiences in Seattle and Portland.

Just to be clear, most of the films I've seen far are not very... sexy. Not the way mainstream porn is. Most of them are hilarious, or at least try to be funny. Many are charmingly lo-fi. Every single one is brave. Though I have now witnessed many acts between humans that even the immediate application of three gin and tonics failed to delete from my memory bank, I am thrilled that so many different people have such healthy relationships with their sexual desires that they can act them out in flagrante.

Here is what I learned, watching all of you get your HUMP on.

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A popular church well known for trying to reform the gays is moving to town—so how should local LGBT folks react?

When we broke the news that a new branch of evangelic megachurch Mars Hill is moving to Sunnyside, the debate was immediate. Some queer community leaders, like the Q Center, extended the olive branch and asked Mars Hill's pastor to come meet with them for a respectful, private dialogue. Meanwhile, other queer groups vowed a picket and kiss-in for the first day of church.

Mars Hill cancelled its first day of services and still hasn't rescheduled. But now, both sides of the queer community are having a public town hall on the topic: The LGBTQ Community and the Evangelical Mega Church—An Exercise in Deep Democracy will be held next Wednesday, October 5th, and the Progress Works Institute at 2049 NW Hoyt (their event page says there's only room for 90 people, but more people are welcome to come for standing-room-only space).

On the peace and friendship side, Q Center Executive Director Barbara McCullough-Jones recognized the right of everyone in the United States to choose their beliefs and lifestyles. "For us to want to generically throw a blanket over their ability for free speech, we would not want that done to us," said McCullough-Jones, when the news was first announced.

Q Center public relations chief Logan Lynn blogged about his meeting with the Mars Hill crew. "My motivation comes from growing up in a fundamentalist Christian house in the Midwest, " says Lynn. "The idea of meeting with Mars Hill is not to change minds—they're not going to convince me to get back in the closet—the idea is to figure out how to coexist. I don't know if that's possible, but I have to try."

On the friendly-meetings-won't-help side, Just Out writer Daniel Borgen blogged the feelings of many in a post about how no amount of talking will get anti-gay Evangelicals to change their ways:

Per Logan, conversations were positive and civil, and both sides left with a “better understanding of the other perspective.” I don’t doubt staff at Q felt that way, and I don’t doubt the Hill people felt they did the Lord’s work by meeting with some homos. (Their website response implied as much.) Bonus: Maybe a meet and greet could improve their standing with local media.

Nothing we say or do can convince evangelicals we’re not degenerates—if we love, we automatically are.

• Xander: Totes Republican.

So tell me what happened at the party convention.
My goal was to take out as much of the hostile language toward LGBT people as possible. The "family platform" section of the party used to read: "We concur with the Oregon Constitution that marriage is between one man and one woman. We do not consider “same sex marriage” to be 'marriage' nor 'civil unions' to have any equivalency nor right to legal standing. Nor do we believe 'same sex marriage' or 'civil unions' worthy of legal standing for adoption or parenting purposes."

I thought that was wrong and insulting. "I've had friends with straight parents who weren't always good parent. To just say you're gay, you're not fit for parenting is completely wrong. We were able to change the section so that it now just reads: "We believe marriage is between one man and one woman." While I personally believe the government should not be involved in marriage at all, to me that was a very good compromise. It took out the antagonistic language that was in the platform before.

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