Gay Marriage. A county circuit judge in Portland made a ruling on gay marriages yesterday. Which is odd, really, because I was under the impression that everyone was waiting until the Oregon Supreme Court heard the case and made a ruling before doing anything else. My impression here is that someone got lawsuit happy and couldn't wait.

But here's the thing. The article states that both sides are happy with the interim ruling. Well, I'm not really. The judges opinion that this matter should be up to the legislature is correct, but then he ORDERS them to convene in special session to resolve this in the NEXT 90 DAYS!? Isn't this stepping over the bounds of judicial authority?

His ruling that, while the legislature could define marriage as between a man and woman, but legal rights must be given to gay couples in the form of a civil union or something, is a little different, but not much so. I still think that this is not a constitutional matter. I.E. I don't think that the constitution speaks to this issue either way. The legislature certainly has the right to create civil unions, or to declare that gays can marry, but the courts are the wrong place to be deciding this.