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Two men holding hands and gazing at each other oh so adoringly looks wierd.
February 27, 2004 718-921-2158 www.cpnys.org
CONSERVATIVES CALL ON ATTORNEY GENERAL SPITZER TO ISSUE RULING ON TODAY'S GAY MARRIAGE
Ft. Hamilton Station, NY -- Chairman Michael R. Long has called on Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to issue an opinion on the legality of a village Mayor to marry same sex couples. Siting a 1929 case, Chairman Long asks the Attorney General to reaffirm the well established law. The text of the letter follows:
We write to request that you immediately issue an opinion that the announcement of the mayor of New Paltz that he will begin performing same-sex marriages on Friday, February 27, 2004 is illegal. As noted on Newsday's web page Thursday, February 26, 2004, "New York attorney general has not issued a ruling on the question" of the legality of same-sex marriages. It is now time for you to issue such a ruling.
First, it is elementary that marriage is a civil contract; that the law deals with it as it does with all other contracts; that it pronounces a marriage to be valid whenever a man and a woman, able and willing to contract, promise to become husband and wife. See, e.g., Fisher v. Fisher, 250 N.Y. 313 (1929). The law is well established, and should be reaffirmed by your office.
Second, the New Paltz Mayor's actions clearly flout the laws governing marriage ceremonies. Although the new Paltz Mayor has the authority to preside over a marriage ceremony under Domestic Relations Law Section 11, the Mayor needs an out-of-village accomplice to effectuate the marriage, as the New Paltz Village Clerk does not have the authority to issue marriage licenses. See Domestic Relations Law Section 13 (only city or town clerks have such authority). Thus, the New Paltz Mayor must be involving non-New Paltz clerks in his scheme to evade the law.
Third, the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses by the New Paltz Mayor involves the commission of a crime. Section 16 of the Domestic Relations Law makes any materially false statements made in applying for, or issuing, a marriage license punishable as perjury. Here, the false statement is the (presumably) non-New Paltz accomplice clerk in issuing the license will be false because the application will be altered. For his part, the mayor will be acting willfully because he will be marrying two same-sex people, and thus clearly cannot claim ignorance as a defense.
Please note that I have said throughout that "presumably" the New Paltz mayor will use a non-New Paltz clerk to issue the marriage licenses, because I presume that he will make it at least appear as if he is complying with the statutory prerequisites for binding marriage. Of course, the possibility exists that he ignores ever this veneer of legality.
Fourth, it is essential that you issue an opinion on this issue immediately, as the chaos that the New Paltz Mayor so clearly hopes to foment will soon descend upon the entire State of New York. Without a uniform State law, same-sex couples will merely "forum-shop" for friendly municipalities, get married there, and demand the rest of the State recognize their "marriage". It was just this very potential for chaos that led the Congress to pass, and President Clinton to sign, the Defense of marriage Act in 1996. It is time to stop a rogue New Paltz Mayor from plunging our State into chaos.
What an arse of a mayor ! Thank you San Francisco for starting this cra* !Latest article from The Dallas Morning News , a big advocate for gays and other perverts ...
Mayor of New York town marries gay couples02:23 PM CST on Friday, February 27, 2004
NEW PALTZ, N.Y. – Twenty-one gay couples exchanged wedding vows on the steps of village hall Friday in a spirited ceremony that opened another front on the growing national debate over gay marriage.
As the ceremonies by 26-year-old Mayor Jason West were ending, the state Health Department asked the attorney general to seek an injunction "to prevent further illegal conduct by the mayor," a department spokesman said.
A call to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office was not immediately returned.
West, elected on the Green Party ticket last year in this village 75 miles north of New York City, joined Gavin Newsom of San Francisco as the country's only mayors to marry same-sex couples.
"What we're witnessing in America today is the flowering of the largest civil rights movement the country's had in a generation," West said.
Billiam van Roestenberg, 38, and Jeffrey McGowan, 39, of nearby Plattekill, were the first to wed. Wearing suits, they held hands and carried flowers as the crowd cheered.
"I feel happy and joyful and peaceful," van Roestenberg said. "A little bit of peace has finally come in. I feel proud to be an American."
"Now I'm normal and equal like every one else," he said.
The midday ceremonies ended a little more than an hour after they started.
More than 100 people, mostly supporters of gay marriage, turned out on the green across from village hall, outnumbering family and friends of the couples there to marry. A few scattered protesters carried signs opposing gay marriage.
Jay Blotcher of High Falls, N.Y., said that while West could only give him a certificate and not a marriage license, it was still important to go through the ceremony.
"We have to show people who we are," he said. "We've been badmouthed by religious zealots. We've been deprived by President Bush, and we have to show people that we're your friends, neighbors and family."
Blotcher, who with his partner has already gotten a civil union in Vermont and a domestic partnership in New York City, said Friday marked another important step.
"This country was founded on a revolution," he said. "And this is a revolution, but it's a revolution of love."
One protester stood outside the hall with a sign that read, in part, "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."
"It's against nature," Angelo Da'Quaro said. "It's against religion, it's against all of that."
The ceremonies came a day after the state Health Department said New York's domestic relations law does not allow marriage licenses for same-sex couples. It said a clerk issuing such a license or anyone solemnizing such a marriage would be violating state law.
Department spokesman William Van Slyke said the department was requesting the injunction and also wants the attorney general's office to find the same-sex marriages in New Paltz "null and void."
West and some legal experts said they read the law differently.
"For a marriage to be legal in this state all that's required is for it to be properly solemnized by someone with authority to do so," West told the CNN cable network early Friday. "I'm fully able to do that."
Vincent Bonventre, a professor at Albany Law School, said nothing in New York law explicitly prohibits same-sex weddings, but that the framers "clearly were contemplating opposite-sex marriages."
Discussion of gay marriage heated up this month after the top Massachusetts court ruled that anything less than full-fledged marriage for gays there would be unconstitutional. Since then, San Francisco officials have performed more than 3,400 same-sex marriages and have challenged their state law barring such unions. Earlier this week, President Bush endorsed a movement to amend the Constitution to ban the practice.
A bill in the New York Legislature would ban same-sex marriages. Similar bills have died without action in the past. At least 34 states have enacted so-called defense of marriage laws.
As word of the New Paltz ceremonies spread Thursday, the number of couples seeking to marry quickly tripled to 12, and the mayor set up a waiting list on the village's web site. By noon Friday, West said more than 100 people had signed up on the Web site, and he had received "innumerable" phone calls and e-mails from others who want to marry.
Plattsburgh Mayor Daniel Stewart – New York state's first and only openly gay mayor – said he will not perform same-sex marriages.
"I believe in changing the law, but I don't believe in breaking the law in order to change it," said Stewart, a Republican.
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/022704dnnatgaymarriage.b27e3.html
