PORTLAND, Ore.—As it promised, a group that advocates for rightwing Christian legal issues has taken its bid to get a statewide vote on Oregon’s new domestic partnership law to a federal appeals court.

Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Arizona, filed its notice of appeal in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals March 5.

In February, a federal judge in Portland allowed the law to go into effect. A petition drive to refer the law to the voters fell just shy of the signatures it needed. The judge upheld the procedures that led to some signatures being rejected.

Separately, two Republican legislators have proposed an initiated measure to repeal the law.