This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBTQ rights that took place in the year 2004.
The United States District Court for the District of Oregon is the federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the state of Oregon. It was created in 1859 when the state was admitted to the Union. Appellate jurisdiction belongs to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Matthew P. Deady served as its first judge.
Ballot Measure 36 was a 2004 initiative in the U.S. state of Oregon. It amended the Oregon Constitution to define marriage as a union of one man and one woman. The initiative passed with 1,028,546 votes in favor,and 787,556 votes against in the November 2,2004 general election. It is one of a number of U.S. state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. However,unlike other similar ballot measures passed on or near the same election date,the amendment did not explicitly ban civil unions between same-sex couples.
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in Oregon since May 19,2014,when Judge Michael J. McShane of the U.S. District Court for the District Court of Oregon ruled in Geiger v. Kitzhaber that Oregon's 2004 state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. A campaign that was then under way to win voter approval of a constitutional amendment legalizing same-sex marriage was suspended following the decision. Oregon was the seventeenth U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage. In July 2015,Governor Kate Brown signed legislation codifying same-sex marriage in various Oregon statutes. The law change went into effect on January 1,2016.
Ancer Lee Haggerty is an inactive senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. At the time of his nomination to the federal bench by President Clinton in 1993,he was serving as an Oregon circuit court judge.
W. Michael Gillette is an American attorney and retired judge in the state of Oregon. He was a justice of the Oregon Supreme Court,where he served from 1986 until 2010. A graduate of Harvard Law School,he was previously a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals from 1977 to 1986.
Betty Cantrell Roberts was an American politician and judge from the U.S. state of Oregon. She was the 83rd justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. She was the first woman to serve on the Oregon Supreme Court,and had also been the first woman on the Oregon Court of Appeals. Roberts served from 1982 to 1986 on the high court and from 1977 to 1982 on the Court of Appeals.
Karin Johanna Immergut is an American lawyer who has served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon since 2019. She concurrently serves as a judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court since 2024.
Marco Antonio Hernandez is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.
Michael Howard Simon is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.
Lesbian,gay,bisexual,and transgender,and queer (LGBTQ) people in the U.S. state of Oregon have the same legal rights as non-LGBTQ people. Oregon became one of the first U.S. jurisdictions to decriminalize sodomy in 1972,and same-sex marriage has been legal in the state since May 2014 when a federal judge declared the state's ban on such marriages unconstitutional. Previously,same-sex couples could only access domestic partnerships,which guaranteed most of the rights of marriage. Additionally,same-sex couples are allowed to jointly adopt,and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the areas of employment,housing and public accommodations is outlawed in the state under the Oregon Equality Act,enacted in 2008. Conversion therapy on minors is also illegal.
Max Oliver Cogburn Jr. is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.
Michael Walter Fitzgerald is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Robert James Shelby is an American attorney and judge serving as the chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah.
This article addresses the history of gay men in the United States. Unless otherwise noted,the members of same-sex male couples discussed here are not known to be gay,but they are mentioned as part of discussing the practice of male homosexuality—that is,same-sex male sexual and romantic behavior.
Geiger v. Kitzhaber is a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon that requires Oregon to allow same-sex couples to marry and to recognize same-sex marriages established in other jurisdictions. The decision arose from two consolidated cases that alleged that Oregon's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage,Article 15,§5,and all related marriage statutes,violate the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Among the several defendants,Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed appearances in the case to defend Oregon's position,but declined to defend the constitutionality of the bans and ordered state agencies to recognize the validity of same-sex marriages established elsewhere.
Joseph Owan Gibson is an American right-wing activist and the founder of the far-right group Patriot Prayer,which is active in Portland,Oregon and other cities within the Pacific Northwest.
Adrienne Camille Nelson is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2023 as a United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. She was previously a justice of the Oregon Supreme Court from 2018 to 2023 and a judge on the Multnomah County Circuit Court from 2006 to 2018.
