Skip to main contentThe latest step in Basic Rights Oregon's effort to bring marriage rights to same-sex couples in Oregon will become visible next week with a statewide TV ad campaign and a direct mailing to households in the Portland metro area.
BRO executive director Jeana Frazzini told WW in an interview earlier this week that the TV ads would run for three weeks throughout Oregon and that they are similar to earlier ads that ran in the state last summer as part of an education campaign. She wouldn't say how much her gay-rights organization was spending on this new set of TV ads or the mailing.
BRO is stressing the chance for Oregon to become the first state in which residents can vote in same-sex marriage rights (as opposed to that right being granted by the courts or a legislative body, as was the case with five states and Washington, DC in which gay marriage is legally recognized).
While Frazzini cites the positive trends in multiple national polls that reflect growing approval of same-sex marriage rights, she is not committing yet to a 2012 ballot measure campaign in Oregon to reverse the ban on gay marriage that Oregon voters approved in 2004. She said a continued public education campaign over the next six to eight months comes first.
"Given the expense of mounting a ballot measure campaign, we need to have a reasonable expectation of success," Frazzini said. "We're really in a place where conversation about a 2012 ballot measure is a conversation for another day."
WWeek 2015