View Full Version : New York State Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Same Sex Marriage
This just in...
In a landmark ruling today, the New York Supreme Court ruled that Same-Sex couples MUST be allowed to marry.
More details will follow as we hear from authorities and Lambda Legal. Next step -- NEW JERSEY!!!
Same-Sex Couples Must Be Allowed To Marry in New York, Court Says; Lambda Legal To Hold Press Conference on Todays Historic Ruling with Victorious Clients and Attorneys 'This is a historic ruling that delivers the state Constitutions promise of equality to all New Yorkers.'
Press conference set for 1:30 p.m. in Manhattan
(New York, February 4, 2005) A New York State court ruled today that same-sex couples must be allowed to marry, in a decision that Lambda Legal called a historic ruling that delivers the state Constitutions promise of equality to all New Yorkers. Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit last year, representing five same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses in New York.
In a ruling issued this morning in New York City, State Supreme Court Judge Doris Ling-Cohan said that the New York State Constitution guarantees basic freedoms to lesbian and gay people and that those rights are violated when same-sex couples are not allowed to marry. The ruling said the state Constitution requires same-sex couples to have equal access to marriage, and that the couples represented by Lambda Legal must be given marriage licenses.
This is a historic ruling that delivers the state Constitutions promise of equality to all New Yorkers, said Susan Sommer, Supervising Attorney at Lambda Legal and the lead attorney on the case. The court recognized that unless gay people can marry, they are not being treated equally under the law.
Same-sex couples need the protections and security marriage provides, and this ruling says theyre entitled to get them the same way straight couples do.
Further details on the ruling and interviews with the couples in the case will be available at a press conference today at Lambda Legals national headquarters in Lower Manhattan.
Full press release from Lambda Legal about the ruling:
News Releases 02/04/2005
Same-Sex Couples Must Be Allowed To Marry In New York, Court Rules; Lambda Legal Says Decision Is ‘Historic, Well Reasoned and Fair’
Lambda Legal brought the case under the state Constitution, saying gay New Yorkers weren’t being treated equally under the law because they couldn’t marry
(New York, February 4, 2005) — A New York State court ruled today that same-sex couples must be allowed to marry, in a decision that Lambda Legal called “a historic ruling that delivers the state Constitution’s promise of equality to all New Yorkers.” Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit last year, representing five same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses in New York City.
In a 62-page decision issued this morning in New York City, State Supreme Court Justice Doris Ling-Cohan said that the New York State Constitution guarantees basic freedoms to lesbian and gay people – and that those rights are violated when same-sex couples are not allowed to marry. The ruling said the state Constitution requires same-sex couples to have equal access to marriage, and that the couples represented by Lambda Legal must be given marriage licenses.
“I was even more moved than I thought I’d be when I heard about this ruling. All of us cried – me, Mary Jo and our 15-year-old daughter. For the first time, our family is being treated with the respect and dignity that our friends, coworkers and neighbors automatically have,” said Jo-Ann Shain, a 51-year-old New York City resident who is a plaintiff in the case with her partner, Mary Jo Kennedy, 49. “Last week, Mary Jo and I celebrated our 23rd anniversary together, but we’ve never had all the protections and rights that come with marriage. We need these protections to take responsibility for each other and for our daughter, and we are enormously grateful that the court saw that and said our family should be treated equally.”
“This is a historic ruling that delivers the state Constitution’s promise of equality to all New Yorkers,” said Susan Sommer, Supervising Attorney at Lambda Legal and the lead attorney on the case. “The court recognized that unless gay people can marry, they are not being treated equally under the law. Same-sex couples need the protections and security marriage provides, and this ruling says they’re entitled to get them the same way straight couples do.”
In today’s ruling, Justice Ling-Cohan said, “Simply put, marriage is viewed by society as the utmost expression of a couple’s commitment and love. Plaintiffs may now seek this ultimate expression through a civil marriage.” The ruling (which is stayed for 30 days in case the city chooses to appeal) says the New York City clerk may no longer deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. If the city chooses to appeal the case, it has about a month to file a notice in state appeals court. Justice Ling-Cohan’s ruling also said, “Similar to opposite-sex couples, same-sex couples are entitled to the same fundamental right to follow their hearts and publicly commit to a lifetime partnership with the person of their choosing. The recognition that this fundamental right applies equally to same-sex couples cannot legitimately be said to harm anyone.”
“This ruling is historic, well reasoned and, above all, fair,” Sommer said. “Our clients got full and fair consideration in this case, which is all we asked for. The court obviously looked carefully at the state Constitution and the rights and protections that same-sex couples were being denied because they couldn’t marry. This decision is grounded solidly in the law and the state’s Constitution.”
Justice Ling-Cohan has been a New York Supreme Court Justice since 2002. Before that, she was a judge in Civil Court for the City of New York for seven years. Voters in Manhattan (in districts including Chinatown and Lower Manhattan) elected her to both positions. When Ling-Cohan ran for the New York Supreme Court, she was the only candidate in a field of 12 who was nominated by four parties, including the Republican and Democratic parties. She received 50,384 votes on the Republican Party line; her support from the Republican Party line was higher than the majority of the other candidates.
The 2000 U.S. Census counted 594,391 households in the country where same-sex couples live together. Of those, 46,490 (or 7.8 percent of the national total) are in New York State, and 25,906 (or 4.3 percent of the national total) are in New York City. City and state law provides some limited protections and rights to same-sex couples.
Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit in March 2004 seeking marriage licenses for same-sex couples in New York, arguing that denying marriage to same-sex couples violates the state Constitution’s guarantees of equality, liberty and privacy for all New Yorkers. The case was the first of its kind to be filed in New York since the Massachusetts high court ruled that same-sex couples are entitled to full marriage under that state’s Constitution.
Lambda Legal is currently litigating cases seeking marriage for same-sex couples in New Jersey, California (with NCLR and ACLU) and Washington State (with NWLC). The Washington State Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in that lawsuit on March 8, and a decision is pending from the trial court in the California case. A New Jersey state appeals court heard arguments in that case in December, and a decision is pending.
Sommer is Lambda Legal’s lead attorney on the case, Hernandez v. Robles. Jeffrey S. Trachtman and Norman C. Simon of the New York City law firm, Kramer Levin, are co-counsel on the case.
The ruling (which is stayed for 30 days in case the city chooses to appeal) says the New York City clerk may no longer deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. If the city chooses to appeal the case, it has about a month to file a notice in state appeals court.
You better wait 30 days before you open a bottle of Champagne.
Groeten, Miriam
I'm aware of the appeals process in NYS. However, it is still a good ruling in the right direction.
Will NYC appeal? It's hard to say (but I haven't read the entire ruling yet either) They may not as it could drag out towards election season and I'm not too sure Mayor Bloomberg will want to appear to be spending large amounts of money on an appeal while at the same time running on a platform that claims the city is not well fiscally.
Betsy
Hi Betsy,
I agree that the ruling is a great step in the right direction. You bring up a fiscal argument in favor of not appealing the ruling. It's an interesting argument. Although human rights issues transcend fiscal issues, I am aware that in many cases, human rights are not costly to the state. As I said, in part, the other day to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission concerning the Intersex Task Force Report:
"This report represents the first time that a governmental body in the United States has investigated intersex treatments from a human rights perspective. It is important to remember that this is a human rights issue. Some of the findings and recommendations might prove to be controversial. But, in my heart, I know that what is being asked for is not much, and it is good. What is being asked for is that the ethical framework in which intersex treatment decisions are made, not withhold from interex people the right to make fully informed consent decisions about medical treatments that are driven more by cultural factors than by underlying medical health problems."
This seems to be another case where human rights are not costly to the state. The report should be out soon.
Peter
RGMCjim
02-05-05, 06:28 PM
According to the Associated Press Kevin Quinn, spokesman for Gov. Pataki, said, "The governor strongly believes that the judge's decision is wrong," adding that New York's marriage laws are clear that marriage is between a man and a woman." Blah, blah, blah. This is the first challenge to the constitutionality of that VERY new law and look how it got spanked! The law conflicts with equality. Soooo.....the only way for the Court of Appeals to reject Hon. Ling-Cohen's ruling is to admit to sacking equality. That just creates more judicial argument that the purpose of the law is to create a class of people for the purpose of discriminating against them - also Un-Constitutional.
When Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel, an Orlando Fla. based group devoted to opposing the right of same sex couples to marry got wind of it he is quoted, "Redefinition of a law's terms is for the legislature to do, not for a judge." Evidently he didn't get a chane to read her entire decision. In her decision, Ling-Cohan cited and relied on rulings from the last century that barred and then permitted interracial marriages.
It's not just about being gay, transsexual or intersexed. It's about freedom, liberty, justice and equality for EVERYONE. If we fight for the right of any couple to marry then it doesn't matter what sex, gender, or orientation we are. For the intersexed it means our sex would be irrelevant, a non-issue. This is what the Empire State Agenda attorney told me last year at a conference. It's good stuff.
I fervently concur - no matter how this NYC ruling turns out it's another brick knocked out of the wall, and every brick lost weakens the wall.
There's a good article in the NY Daily News examining the political issues of NYC appealing it, if they do. http://nydailynews.com/news/local/story/277957p-238162c.html
Another thing that I haven't seen mentioned but I'm sure someone did, is AG Spitzer will likely be challenging Pataki for the governor position. While Spitzer has said previously that same sex marriage was a violation of state law as it is written, he did so only after considerable waffling on the issue. That came out when Nyack did some marriages.
It should make for a very interesting election season and I suspect that all the politicos are taking a very close look at the ruling and considering how it will impact their political future.
Betsy
Which is what I would have called this article about marriage, Mayor Bloomberg and NYC politics in an election year.
The New York Times
February 7, 2005
Gay Marriage Ruling a Test of the Mayor's Political Mettle
By JIM RUTENBERG
With rising poll numbers, positive economic data and a preliminary election-year budget that avoided major cuts or tax hikes, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's opponents seemed to have a limited arsenal of weapons to use against him - until late last week.
A court ruling against the city on Friday making gay marriage legal in the five boroughs threw Mr. Bloomberg and his election team their first real test of the campaign season.
To forgo an appeal would have been to pave the way for a wave of gay marriages in New York City, which would certainly hurt Mr. Bloomberg - a longtime Democrat who only became a Republican four years ago - in a likely primary against two conservative challengers. But to appeal would be to anger not only politically powerful gay voters, but also heterosexual voters who approve of same-sex marriage.
Mr. Bloomberg's solution, to pledge support for gay marriage while also announcing that the city would appeal the judge's decision to ensure that a higher court is in agreement with it, drew criticism yesterday from those on both sides of the debate. But even opponents said he seemed to have bought himself some time - though how much remains unclear.
"I think he tried to punt," said City Councilwoman Christine Quinn, a gay Democrat who represents Chelsea, Greenwich Village and Hell's Kitchen. "How far he'll get down the field is yet to be seen."
Officials at City Hall said Mr. Bloomberg's comments on Saturday came after a frenzied day and a half of deliberations in which the mayor was constantly e-mailing and telephoning his advisers and lawyers.
Mr. Bloomberg and his aides found out Thursday night what the rest of the city would learn the next day: that Justice Doris Ling-Cohan of State Supreme Court had decided that the state's nearly 100-year-old law defining marriage as between a man and a woman violated its Constitution. She gave the city 30 days before it had to issue marriage licenses to gay couples requesting them.
Ed Skyler, a spokesman for the mayor, said city lawyers, who were defending the city in a lawsuit brought by five same-sex couples, wanted to appeal immediately. He said they thought that state law was clear and that the latest decision contradicted other rulings upholding the law forbidding gay marriages.
What was needed, the lawyers argued, was clarification from the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals.
But, Mr. Skyler said, the mayor initially resisted his lawyers.
"It was tough - he was being asked to appeal a decision that he agrees with essentially," he said.
What convinced Mr. Bloomberg to authorize the appeal, Mr. Skyler said, were his lawyers' arguments that the city should avoid what happened last year in San Francisco after its mayor, Gavin Newsom, issued thousands of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
A state court nullified them a few months later.
"No one has written the story about how devastated people were when the California court came back and said those marriage licenses didn't mean anything," said Jonathan Capehart, an informal adviser with whom Mr. Bloomberg consulted late last week.
Mr. Capehart said that the thrust of his advice to the mayor was, "Whatever you do, you must come out for gay marriage." He added, "I knew he was for it, so it was like, if you're going to say something, now's the time to say it - especially if you're going to appeal."
Throughout his mayoralty, Mr. Bloomberg has avoided saying exactly where he stands on gay marriage, though associates have frequently said publicly they believe he is for it. While there were obvious political reasons for Mr. Bloomberg to avoid a public pronouncement - he can ill afford to alienate social conservatives who may vote in a Republican primary - a top aide argued that the mayor's position has evolved over time and that only now was he ready to share it.
But Mr. Bloomberg's aides do not deny that they thought a statement supporting gay marriage could go a long way in tempering public anger over the city's appeal.
Before Mr. Bloomberg made his decision public, he telephoned gay leaders, including officials of Lambda Legal, the group representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to Justice Ling-Cohan's decision.
Those calls seemed to help. Even as many gay groups expressed disappointment with his decision, they, including Lambda, also praised the mayor for supporting gay marriage.
Still, Mr. Bloomberg's opponents, especially Democrats, argue that his position is cynically political. Two Democrats seeking his job, Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president, and Gifford Miller, the City Council speaker, joined several gay elected officials at City Hall yesterday to blast the mayor for what State Senator Thomas K. Duane called "cowardice."
"When you have social issues that New Yorkers care about like this, and he takes the Republican perspective, it endangers his re-election," said Assemblyman Scott Stringer, a Democrat representing the Upper West Side. "You can't be for something when you're appealing it."
The mayor's aides and several gay activists agreed that the issue's effect on the election could depend on how soon the matter is decided.
Should the Court of Appeals strike down Justice Ling-Cohan's ruling, activists say they will watch closely to see if Mr. Bloomberg goes through with his promise to lobby the Legislature to legalize gay marriage.
But it's anyone's guess if or when the court might agree to hear the case. Lawyers on both sides of the matter say it could be as soon as this spring - well before the Sept. 13 primary and the Nov. 8 general election - or as late as next year, well after it.
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