IF HISTORY PROVES anything about Lon and Bonnie Mabon, the authors of Ballot Measure 9, it's that their most recent defeat won't make them, or their perverse dreams for anti-gay legislation, go away.

After two previous defeats at Oregon's ballot box, the Mabons think God Himself ordered them to try once more. Logic would dictate that last week's overwhelming defeat--a hat trick now¯would slow the Mabons' convictions that Oregonians want anything to do with legislation that equates gays to perverts. But, as past history proves, as long as the Mabons are alive and kicking, anti-gay legislation is likely to once again rear its ugly head. However, if any ballot season could kill the Mabons, this was it. The past few months have been particularly detrimental as an expensive skeleton emerged from the OCA's closet: Catherine Stauffer, a photojournalist who was assaulted nine years ago by OCA leader Scott Lively during the Mabons' first push for anti-gay legislation. She won a lawsuit against the OCA for injuries sustained in 1991.

For almost a decade, however, the organization has refused to pay up. When money began to pour in for this year's anti-homo campaign, Stauffer and her attorneys claimed that the money owed was past due. In October, a judge agreed and ordered the Mabons to pay up. Even as the tensions of the election season fade, Stauffer and her attorneys are keeping the Mabons up to their necks in attorneys' fees and fines--hopefully permanently debilitating them from pursuing yet another round of anti-gay ballot measures.