Posted on 08/12/2002 9:49:15 PM PDT by Pokey78
New York City could become the first jurisdiction in America to apply the word “marriage” to gay and lesbian unions, a move that would shatter a taboo in the legislation of homosexual relationships.
The City Council is expected to vote to approve a bill Thursday that would give formal recognition to “members of a marriage that is not recognized by the state of New York, domestic partnership, or civil union, lawfully entered into in another jurisdiction.”
Courts in Vermont and Hawaii have forced states to recognize same-sex unions, but the legislatures have danced around the word “marriage.”
Those decisions have followed public opinion polls that suggest more Americans support granting the rights associated with marriage — inheritance and medical decision-making, for example — to same sex partners, than support opening the marriage rite to gays and lesbians.
“The use of the word ‘marriage’ is done deliberately to make it clear that New York City is going as far as it can possibly go legislatively to recognize lesbian and gay relationships,” said Christine Quinn, one of the bill’s lead sponsors. “It sends a message that the city of New York thinks all relationships are equal.”
The bill’s actual legal content is relatively minor. The law would come into play, for example, if a car in New York hit one member of a lesbian couple with a civil union in Vermont. The other member of the couple would have the legal right to make medical decisions for her partner.
The only jurisdiction that opens the standard marriage ceremony to same-sex couples is the Netherlands; and only impact of the use of “marriage” in the council bill would be to recognize gay and lesbian Dutch couples.
But opponents and supporters of the bill alike point to its symbolic boldness.
“This will be used as exhibit A in making the case that society is willing to recognize gay marriage,” said David Zweibel, the executive vice president for government and public affairs at Agudath Israel, an Orthodox Jewish group. In a memo to the council, the organization called the measure “morally offensive” and “dangerous” because it would weaken the institution of marriage and contradict religious opposition to homosexuality.
The bill “would put New York City on the record as a pioneer in the social and moral revolution against the time-hallowed institution of traditional marriage,” the memo argued.
But religious conservatives hold little sway in city politics. The speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, has sponsored the bill, a strong sign he will ensure its passage. Mayor Bloomberg’s Human Rights commissioner, Patricia Gatling, testified in June that Mr. Bloomberg would not oppose the bill.
New York City first recognized “domestic partnerships” in 1993. Then-Mayor Giuliani signed the current, broad partnership law in 1998.
Under the law, unmarried people who had lived together for a year had the right to register as partners and were given the same treatment as married couples.
More than 17,000 people have registered as domestic partners, about a third of them same-sex couples.
Under Ms. Quinn’s bill, New York City would recognize similar partnership institutions that have begun to crop up around the country and in Europe.
But what is really radical about the bill is the phrase “a marriage that is not recognized by the state of New York,” which is defined to exclude incest and polygamy.
The choice to use the language of “marriage,” rather than “civil union” and “domestic partnership,” reflects how rapidly same-sex marriage has emerged as a serious national issue. Just six years ago, a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which explicitly limits the federal definition of marriage to straight couples, and allows one state to ignore another state’s recognition of same-sex marriage.
Despite the federal law, the campaign for the rights of homosexual partners has seen two successes this year. In January, the Democratic National Committee issued a resolution calling for opening Social Security to same sex partners; and in June, President Bush signed an act granting federal death benefits to the partners of law enforcement officers killed on September 11.
Homosexual couples have sued for the right to marry in five states. Hawaii and Alaska pre-empted their claims by passing laws to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman; Vermont established civil unions. Cases are being argued in Massachusetts and New Jersey.
Advocates of same-sex marriage argue that it is a right guaranteed by the American constitution. They point to a 1967 decision that overturned a Virginia law against intermarriage between races: the decision cites both the equal protection clause of the constitution and a basic “freedom to marry.”
The City Council bill appears to assume that the advocates will win marriage rights, at least in some parts of the country, a move that drew praise from Evan Wolfson, the director of the Freedom to Marry Collaborative.
“What this does is contemplate that someday gay people will be able to marry somewhere,” he said.
There is no lack of pastors who will officiate an unlicensed union/marriage. And there is little impediment from the law to 'gay marriage.' Nobody in this coutnry is being sent to jail for performing gay marriages. The law today treats them as a fiction rather than an offense.
Where the law enters is in bestowing and enforcing benefits, rights and obligations. But the religious aspects are not interfered with.
I don't know what their problem is. They have the exact same right to marry as anyone else does.
God Save America (Please)
We cry out for God to protect us, then turn around and abort the unborn and elevate sodomy to a par with marriage between a man and a woman.
This country will have peace when we stop trashing God's laws and the moral order.
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