BARBARA ROBERTS
Above Barbara’s book was published in 2011 Up the Capitol Steps | OSU Press (oregonstate.edu)
BARBARA, FRANK ROBERTS HONORED FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES WORK
September 20, 1987 | Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
Author/Byline: DAN HORTSCH - of the Oregonian Staff | Page: B01, cont. B02 | Section: Local Stories
Barbara and Frank Roberts trade words and ideas quickly, with animation, the two of them comprising a social and political marketplace where thoughts are the accepted currency.
They react to each other's commentary and supplement it with details or an anecdote. Political beings -- she is Oregon's secretary of state and he is a state senator -- they are not loath to talk about themselves, but each talks about the other as readily and with feeling.
Their obvious rapport and joint sense of purpose make them appropriate choices to share this year's E.B. MacNaughton Civil Liberties Award, presented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon.
``Frank and Barbara Roberts have always been there in support of civil liberties over a very broad range of issues, the politically tough ones as well as those that have majority support,'' said Stevie Remington, executive director of the ACLU of Oregon.
``Most important,'' she added, ``they not only cast their votes, but they have been hardworking and effective leaders in gaining the support of others. They have truly made a difference with respect to civil liberties in Oregon.''
The award, the ACLU's highest, will be given to the couple during a benefit at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, at the Masonic Temple, 922 S.W. Main St.
Mort Sahl, the comedian whose stock in trade is social and political commentary, will provide the entertainment. The cost is $40 per person, with proceeds to benefit the ACLU Foundation of Oregon.
Seated together, asked to talk about their work and concerns in the area of civil rights, Frank and Barbara Roberts clearly were pleased at the honor but nevertheless surprised to receive it, even though each has received other, lesser civil liberties awards from the ACLU.
Frank Roberts, a retired professor of speech communications at Portland State University, said he had thought of Barbara Roberts in terms of her work for civil rights, but ``I had not really thought about my own career very much in that sense.''
However, upon reflection, he realized, ``The whole question of civil rights seems to be so integral to most of the social and political questions we have been concerned about.''
Those concerns have been legion.
As a legislator first elected to the House for the 1967 session, Frank Roberts, 71, has worked to end discrimination on the basis of sex, race, age or sexual orientation in housing, social organizations, education and employment.
He has supported legalized abortion, the rights of the elderly and others in nursing homes and basic assistance for people in need.
He also has promoted children's rights and, in juvenile corrections, programs emphasizing prevention and treatment.
After being elected to three terms in the House, Roberts worked one session as a legislative staff member and in 1975 was elected to the Senate, where he represents a Northeast Portland district.
Barbaa Roberts, 50, a construction company accounting and office manager, became acquainted with the workings of the Legislature when, in 1971, she fought successfully for public school education for handicapped children -- including her 6-year-old autistic son, who had been sent home from the first grade with a note explaining that the school district did not accept such students.
She went on to serve on school boards and on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners and eventually was elected to the House for three sessions beginning in 1981. She was elected secretary of state in the fall of 1984.
A woman who at age 35 was asked by a telephone company to have her father co-sign her request for telephone service in her name, Barbara Roberts has been a vocal supporter of reproductive and other rights for women.
In the meantime, she also has campaigned for rights for homosexuals and for juveniles and for voting practices that give prospective voters the greatest chance to have a say in the operation of their society. Then there is the place it all began -- the rights of the handicapped.
It should come as no surprise that this politically astute and socially concerned couple get along just fine. After 13 years of marriage they hold hands while they talk -- a political touch, the skeptical might say, but the warmth is unmistakable.
``We have for a long time shared a continuous dialogue, sometime agreement, sometimes disagreement, on political and social questions,'' Frank Roberts said.
Barbara Roberts added, ``We have a number of things like that that are so important to both of us that we never run out of things to talk about.''
When Barbara Roberts first turned to the Legislature to protect the right of her son to go to a public school, she went to then-Rep. Frank Roberts, whom she knew, but not closely. Ever since, a focal point of their work has been the rights of the handicapped.
ACCESS A CONCERN: Access to buildings, particularly public buildings, was one of the early battles. Frank Roberts referred to ``the absolute absurdity of much of the discrimination that we have been concerned about over the years''; as an example he cited the rights of handicapped people ``to have the same access to public buildings'' that others have.
``All over Oregon,'' he said ``handicapped people couldn't get into the public buildings that they paid for because it was a convention to have steps, it was a convention to have narrow doorways and passageways.''
Gradually, conditions have changed, he said, noting the evolution of the practice of making both public and private buildings, new and remodeled, accessible to the handicapped.
Employment of the handicapped is another area in which advances are being made, sometimes with a nudge from people in government.
Barbara Roberts said the secretary of state's office had five handicapped employees, including two deaf persons. As a result, about 40 staff members took signing courses to improve communication with the deaf employees.
``I talk with my hands,'' said the gesticulating and outgoing secretary of state, ``but it doesn't mean anything.''
The story of her own autistic son, Mike Sanders, now 31, has had an ending as happy as she could hope for. After years of assistance through the kinds of public school programs for which his mother fought, he has a job at Mount Hood Community College in Gresham, he lives in his own apartment, he writes checks to pay his bills. And, Frank Roberts added, ``He pays taxes.''
Among the most recent efforts the couple has made has been their work for a bill that would ban discrimination by the state against homosexuals in hiring and other areas. A gay-rights bill failed to make it to the floor of the Legislature this year because, Frank Roberts said, it did not have enough votes in the House.
MAKING DISTINCTIONS: ``One of the things that is very hard for people to separate is the distinction between approval or disapproval of homosexual activities as versus a civil-rights component of that issue,'' said Barbara Roberts, who testified for the bill.
By way of comparison, she said, ``I don't have to approve of someone's religion to understand they have a right to practice a religion that's different from my own.''
Enlarging on his wife's thought, Frank Roberts said, ``To go one step further, you may not like at all how they practice religion, but you don't assume that they shouldn't be able to work.''
One of the problems that gay-rights measures encounter, Frank Roberts said, is that ``many people are confusing civil rights for homosexuals with our actions for equal opportunities for minorities,'' such as affirmative-action programs. But gay rights does not mean special privileges, he said. ``All we're saying is that they should have the same rights as other citizens.
Ultimately, they said, whether talking of the handicapped or women, homosexuals or members of racial minorities, civil liberties can be boiled down to some essential rights not usually cited among the broad spectrum of rights. One, Barbara Roberts said, is ``the right to be heard'' by legislative bodies. ``More and more people are heard in the process'' of developing legislation in Oregon, she said.
Added her husband: ``It is a civil right, I think, to be included in government and not to be excluded.''