A Christian legal organization says it has sued to stop New York from recognizing same-sex marriages legally performed in other states.The Alliance Defense Fund says it filed its lawsuit Tuesday in a court in the Bronx. Several Republican state senators are named as party to the suit.Gay marriage is unconstitutional in New York. Gov. David Paterson however told state agencies on May 14 that New York must recognize same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts, Canada and other places where they are legal.The Arizona-based legal group filing the lawsuit has intervened elsewhere in gay marriage and religious freedom cases including those involving abortion and what it calls traditional family values.source
From Wikipedia:
Alliance Defense Fund (“ADF”) is a conservative Christian non-profit organization with the stated goal of “defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.”[1] In practice ADF is opposed to all forms of abortion, same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, allowing LGBT persons to serve in the military, and sex education in schools that includes comprehensive education on contraception.[2] ADF also works to establish public prayer in schools and government events, and to protect religious displays in government settings, like crosses and other religious monuments built on public lands
The organization was founded by Bill Bright, who also founded the notorious Campus Crusade for Christ.Bright is also a signatory on the famous Land Letter, which gave theological justification for the War in Iraq.Onward Christian Soldiers. Unless your are gay. In which case, Jesus does not love you. Especially if you are from Massachusetts.
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Wow, that organization is awesome. I think I disagree completely with every single last one of their stated goals.
I’m not an expert on the New York Constitution but Paterson may be overreaching here. Given that the New York courts have already ruled that in New York, marriage means one man and one woman, it isn’t clear that it is within Paterson’s power to unilaterally make this decision. George Bush has more than demonstrated what happens when executives try to expand their executive power to support an ideology. Even if it is a result I favor, I have trouble supporting Paterson here.
The bizarre part here is that I am gay, live in CA, and am married to my husband (thank you Canada and the 2004 GLMA conference in Montreal for giving us the excuse.) Even *we* think this is about 17th on the list of important stuff after: 1) global warming, 2) the war in Iraq, 3) the health insurance crisis, 4) the tanking US economy, etc.Its like, guys… get a freaking life already. How obsessed can you be with gay sex that you are seriously putting money and effort into this when all of our grandkids are toast (quite literally if we don’t reduce carbon emissions yesterday), 100 Iraqi civilians die every day in an unjust war that we’ve instigated, 50 people die in the US daily due to uninsurance, and 1% of US homes are somewhere in the foreclosure process currently.C’mon…. lets all get a little perspective here. Not only are you raking leaves in the fall because this is as inevitable as interracial marriage, but you’re making the US look even stupider than we already do. And you’ve got to work hard to top how bad Bush made us look.
Joshua, where on earth are you getting this from? In a recent case, a panel of the New York Supreme Court ruled that the state must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Paterson would be derelict in his duty if he didn’t do this, opening up the state to all kinds of lawsuits.Recognizing marriages performed legally in other jurisdictions is the standard practice, even if such marriages couldn’t legally be performed in the couples’ current state of residence (as, for example, with varying marriageable ages in different states). There’s no legal reason to make an exception for gay couples unless NY state passes a law specifically making such an exception, which isn’t going to happen. Paterson is just telling state agencies to take concrete and prompt steps to do something they should have been doing anyway. Most legal experts I’ve heard interviewed say the homophobic whiners in this situation have little or no legal or constitutional basis for their whines.As I understand the NY Court of Appeals ruling on same-sex marriage that you seem to have in mind, it declared that gay couples do not have a constitutional right to marriage, but that neither does the constitution ban gay marriage.There’s a decent quick summary at this little website I found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_New_York
MPW, The situation is as I understand it more complicated. In The case I was referring to is Hernandez where yes as you say the Court of Appeals said that New York law a) didn’t allow gay marriage and b) that there was no New York Constitutional issue on it either way.The ruling you are referring to is Martinez, which is a) still being appealed and b) was a Supreme Court ruling (in New York the lowest court is the Supreme Court) for a specific county and is in no way binding on New York as a whole. And it isn’t generally the governor’s job to protect against lawsuits of this sort, especially if a) the legislature clearly doesn’t want him to and b) he has no indication from the state’s lawyers that such a step is at all necessary.
NickG:Because of this:http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/05/conservatives_what_you_really.php
Joshua – Right. So as things stand, as I said, it’s still standard practice for states to recognize legal marriages from other jurisdictions. And that’s not going to change in NYS, because the Democrat-controlled side of the legislature that passed a same-sex marriage law last year certainly isn’t about to pass a NYS version of the numerous anti-gay-marriage state laws.So your claims about what the legislature “clearly wants” Paterson to do seem overstated. The Assembly (Democrat-controlled) clearly wants same-sex marriage; the Senate (barely Republican-controlled) refuses to vote on it. If they’re so fired up over it, why not let it come to a vote on the floor of the Senate?There’s provision in the constitution for the legislature to stop these recognitions if they want to, by passing a law against it; and, again, it’ll never happen. So, what does the legislature want again?Things being as they are, whether or not to recognize these out-of-state unions seems a public policy issue, not a constitutional one (leaving aside the obvious moral and human rights issues). And again, most of the legal commentators I’ve read seem to agree with me. If a minority segment of the legislature wants to scream and yell about it, but can’t or won’t do anything about it legislatively, how is that of relevance?In short, we have a state legislature that, yes, won’t pass same-sex marriage but also won’t ban recognition of out-of-state marriages. Given that, the state ought to recognize those from out-of-state, given that they seem to do so with all other marriages. That you compare Paterson’s recognition of this to Bush’s crypto-dictatorial power grabbing is bizarre and hard to understand for me.
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MPW, you make very good points. Consider my comparison between Paterson and Bush withdrawn. As to the other points I need to think about them more.
Joshua, I’ll also refer you to Article IV, Section 1, of the US Constitution, which states:”Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.”
Lightning, yes the full faith and credit clause normally forces this sort of thing. Congress can be appropriate legislation carve out exceptions to that clause. Hence the second sentence there. That’s precisely what congress did with DOMA.
And thank you, Joshua, for forcing me to do a little more research and back up my opinions and contentions more strongly. Always a good thing!