I’m listening to the audio of yesterday’s Oregon Senate Rules Committee hearing on a bill that would enact civil unions for gay couples in that state. The committee passed it 3-2, and it’s expected to pass the full Senate. Prospects in the Republican controlled Oregon House, unfortunately, don’t look as bright.

The debate is making my blood boil: I’m only five minutes in, and already Senator Charles Starr (R-Hillsboro) has busted out homophobic arguments against civil unions ranging from ‘gay marriage is bad for children,’ to gays are sluts who can’t commit (‘homosexual individuals’ have hundreds, and often up to thousands, of partners, says Starr), and being gay is nothing more than a lifestyle of “lustful sexual gratification” that “thousands have left [to] become happily married productive citizens of our society.” Oh, dear. (Tell Starr he’s an idiot: sen.charlesstarr@state.or.us.)

Gotta run, Roey Thorpe of Basic Rights Oregon is up, hopefully to smack Starr upside the head. And I’m waiting to get to the part where a Senator Charlie Ringo (D-Beaverton) apparently breaks out a list of the 100+ rights currently denied to gay couplesbut granted to married heterosand asks the bigots which of the rights, exactly, they’d like to deny to people. Inheritance? Hospital visitation? Which?