IMAGE: cari vanderyacht

While the 2007 Legislature was producing landmark gay-rights legislation, Portland's Columbia Edgewater Country Club was tossing the (gay) baby out with the bathwater.

The Northeast Portland golf club's troubled scorecard on gay rights prior to its gay-unfriendly decision this spring goes back to February 2005 when member Richard Yugler, who is not gay, emailed club manager Hall Wade that a club policy violated gays' rights.

At issue was the 82-year-old club's "spousal-equivalent policy" that let its 450 members designate a "spousal equivalent" (i.e., live-in partner) who would get the same club privileges allowed a member's spouse.

The spousal equivalent couldn't be related to the member by blood or marriage and, here's the catch, had to be "eligible to be the legal spouse" of the member.

Of course, under Oregon law, enshrined in the constitution by Measure 36 in 2004, members of the same sex cannot marry.

A second option for members with relationships more casual than "spousal equivalents" extended free golf-course and driving-range privileges to "companions of the opposite sex when accompanied by such members." (Emphasis added.)

(Policies vary at other Portland clubs. The Portland Golf Club only extends spousal privileges to members of the opposite sex, says general manager John Manley. Riverside Golf and Country Club doesn't differentiate between gay and straight couples, says general manager Richard Ransome. The Multnomah Athletic Club began offering family memberships to gay couples in 2005.)

After Yugler sent his first email, Pearl District developer Bob Ball, who is a club member, approached Wade in spring 2006 about the club's policy. (Other members include U.S. Attorney for Oregon Karin Immergut, federal judge Garr King, powerful lawyer Steve Janik and Oregonian executive editor Peter Bhatia.)

Ball, who is gay, says he felt the club was discriminating against his "life partner," Grant Jones. "I didn't think getting the policy changed would be a big deal," Ball says. "This is Portland and this is the 21st century."

Yugler also continued pressing Wade to get the board to change its policies.

"Oregon's history is blighted by institutions that in the past closed their doors to minorities," says Yugler, president-elect of the Oregon State Bar. "As a Jew, I know that non-Jewish community leaders in past generations opened 'those doors' for my generation at closed clubs.'"

Ball grew frustrated with the club's inaction. About a year ago, he contacted Stoel Rives lawyer Charles Hinkle, a leading First Amendment and civil rights expert.

In June 2006, Hinkle produced a letter arguing that "the Club's Spousal Equivalent Policy violates Section 23.01.070 of the Portland City Code, which makes it unlawful to 'discriminate in public accommodations on the basis of an individual's...sexual orientation.'"

Although Columbia Edgewater is a private club, Hinkle wrote that the law considers it a "public accommodation" because the club offers its banquet facilities for rent to the public and rents its golf course to the general public for group outings. Hinkle wrote that the club's spousal equivalent policy was discriminatory because only heterosexual members are eligible for the benefit.

The club soon notified Ball that his partner, Jones, had been granted spousal-equivalent privileges but left its policies for others unchanged. Finally, this April—as the Legislature created domestic partnerships and prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation—Columbia Edgewater's board wrote members it had "voted to eliminate a club rule that unintentionally exposes Columbia Edgewater to potential, expensive litigation for perceived discrimination."

Rather than extending the spousal equivalent and "girlfriend" rights to gay members, however, the club grandfathered in such privileges for existing members, including Ball, but eliminated them for new members.

Hinkle says that response is reminiscent of Southern schools, swimming pools and restaurants that closed rather than comply with desegregation in the 1950s and '60s. "It's cutting off your nose to spite your face."

Wade denies the club's intent was anti-gay. "The club tried to eliminate all references to gender beginning in the mid-'90s, and this is a continuation of that policy, he says.

Ball is ambivalent about the change. "If this was done because of my complaint, it would be the wrong response," he says. "They've assured me that's not the case, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.'"