Last month in Manhattan, a Supreme Court judge cleared two women married in Canada to sue for divorce.
Now the appellate court (New York's highest court) has ruled that the state must legally recognize valid out-of-state same-sex marriages. Patricia Martinez sued her employer, Monroe Community College, after it denied her request to extend health benefits to her spouse, Lisa Golden. The couple was married in Ontario in 2004.
Advocates for same-sex marriage say the two court decisions last month granting reciprocity in New York to gay marriages in other jurisdictions simply underline what most people would consider common sense.
"If a heterosexual couple got married in France and then came here, they would be married," said Jeffrey Wicks, a lawyer who represented Ms. Martinez in cooperation with the New York Civil Liberties Union. "We recognize foreign marriages, just the same as we recognize Mexican divorces."
New York State has become something of a proving ground for same-sex marriage reciprocity, because it's one of the few US states that hasn't passed a
Only Massachusetts allows same-sex marriage. Courts in Connecticut and California are considering the issue. Other states, including Vermont, New Jersey, Maine and Hawaii, have some not-quite-marriage, not-quite-equal legal union options.
More about the two New York State cases here in the New York Times.
6 comments:
I think this is a very encouraging sign. NY may not have endorsed gay marriage outright, but these decisions pave the way for a change in attitude and then a change in the law. Having watched the debates over this issue here in MA, it is clear to me that many people who initially opposed the legalization of gay marriage now cannot see anything objectionable. The more people grow accustomed to the idea, the more they realize that there is nothing immoral or threatening about allowing two people who love each other to legalize that relationship.
This is an example of how change can come both from above (the law) and below (the grass roots), and that usually it takes both to make real change.
I'm thinking we need to reclaim the whole "defence of marriage" rhetoric and position ourselves as we're the ones defending it (e.g. from obsolesence, from being arbitrarily exclusionary, from being inextricably associated with assholes).
Was about to start writing when an ad for that movie The Birdcage came on TV!
GREAT call ImpStrump!
Those people are so ridiculous--I love the "what's next, people marrying animals?" line. It's like, wait, so you think people are lining up to marry their pets, and are just waiting for word to come down that it's allowed? I think when gay marriage is finally legal in every state, just to fuck with 'em, somebody should write up a bill to allow people to marry animals.
And two gay people are both human beings. So shouldn't these homophobes be saying, "what's next, gay animals of the same species marrying each other?" You know, instead of the heterosexual marriages that commonly take place between non-human animals.
By way of brief update - Monroe County announced on February 22, 2008 that it will appeal the ruling that required recognition of an Ontyario same-sex marriage.
See:
http://wiselaw.blogspot.com/2008/02/county-to-appeal-new-york-ruling-that.html
I'm thinking we need to reclaim the whole "defence of marriage" rhetoric and position ourselves as we're the ones defending it
We're defenders of marriage
Connubial narcs
Ever vigilant and patriotic patriarchs
Defenders of marriage
Defending the institution against people
Who want to get married
-- From Roy Zimmerman's Defenders of Marriage
Great comments, all. ImpStrump, I agree, it's high time!! Nice to see Roy Zimmerman again, too. :)
Those people are so ridiculous--I love the "what's next, people marrying animals?" line. It's like, wait, so you think people are lining up to marry their pets, and are just waiting for word to come down that it's allowed?
But there's no applying logic to bigotry. Comparing same-sex marriage to people marrying animals is just another way of saying "you are a freak". Or "you are a freak because you do not conform to my ideas".
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