About

KnowThyNeighborOregon.com is a group of grassroots activists promoting an open dialogue on basic fairness for gay and lesbian families in Oregon. We are not endorsed by any company, organization or political party.

Be it gay or straight, Oregonians believe that fairness for Oregon families is a must.

On May 9th, 2007, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski signed into law two pieces of legislation that extend basic fairness to gay and lesbians and their families.

Those two laws are:

The Oregon Family Fairness Act (House Bill 2007):
The Oregon Family Fairness Act (HB 2007) creates Domestic Partnerships for same-sex couples and their families. While these Domestic Partnerships are not equivalent to marriage, they will provide basic rights, responsibilities and protections that every family needs to protect one another in times of crisis.

The Oregon Equality Act (Senate Bill 2):
In Oregon it was legal to fire an exemplary employee, deny housing to and even deny service in a restaurant SIMPLY because that person is gay or lesbian. The Oregon Equality Act (SB 2) bans discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodation.

These two laws together work to make Oregon a state of fairness, inclusion and equality for all of those who live and work in the state. We will strive to protect these two laws.

Now a group of religious-right fringe groups are attempting to collect 55,179+ signatures to overturn these new laws (Initiative Petition #303 and #304). KTNO feels that if these anti-family, anti-fairness extremists sign these petitions, that these people should have the courage of their convictions, and simply take responsibility for what they’ve done with their signature on these by signing these petitions. Because the petitions are public information, KnowThyNeighborOregon.com will post each and every name and address of those who participated in this hateful effort to destroy basic fairness for Oregon families.

KnowThyNeighborOregon.com strongly believes that if you sign one or both of these petitions to take away the basic rights of Oregon families and individuals, then again, these people should have the courage of their convictions, and take responsibility for what they’ve done. Being that it is public information, your name and address will appear on this website after the petitions have been turned in.

Both of these referendum attempts represent a public political effort that would negatively affect the lives of thousands of families, individuals, and children within Oregon and we strongly believe that this is NOT the Oregon way.

By posting the names and addresses of the 55,179+ signers, KnowThyNeighborOregon.com is supporting the democratic process by providing the public with direct access to information that they are entitled to see and that is very relevant to this somewhat controversial topic.

KnowThyNeighborOregon.com hopes to inspire respectful, civil, and honest community discourse and discourages with its fullest conviction the actions by anyone to harm a person or their property in retribution for exercising their democratic right to sign the petition.

Petitions will be turned in on or before September 26, 2007. Once these petitions become public information, all names and addresses of petition signers will be available in this online searchable database.

Fighting Petition Fraud:
A key mission of KnowThyNeighborOregon.com is to help stop petition fraud. If a person finds their name on this list erroneously they should immediately contact both the Secretary of State and KnowThyNeighborOregon.com and we will provide that information once names and addresses have been posted to our database.

Is this legal?
Yes. The legality of republishing the names and addresses has been verified with the Oregon Secretary of State’s office to ensure that it is legal. Due to the petitions being public information, it is entirely within the law.