(UPDATE: The Freepi are in a tizzy, the freak-out is after the jump).
Woo hoo, what great news to cap off the week! My marriage is legal somewhere in the U.S. (Newsday):
The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court on Friday reversed a judge’s ruling in 2006 that Monroe Community College did not have to extend health benefits to an employee’s lesbian partner.The ACLU has issued a press release on the case; the reversal was unanimous:Patricia Martinez, a word processing supervisor, sued the school in 2005, arguing that it granted benefits to heterosexual married couples but denied them to Martinez and her partner, Lisa Ann Golden.
The couple formalized their relationship in a civil union ceremony in Vermont in 2001 and were married in Canada in 2004.
In a unanimous decision, a New York appellate court today ruled that marriages of same-sex couples entered into outside of New York must be recognized. The case, filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, is the first appellate court decision in the state and the first known decision in the country to hold that a valid same-sex marriage must be recognized here.The only possibility of reversing this, and it’s an unlikely one, is if the NY legislature chooses to amend marriage law to specifically not recognize the marriages:“This is a victory for families, it’s a victory for fairness and it’s a victory for human rights,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. “Congratulations to all same-sex couples validly married outside of New York State: You are now considered married in New York as well. Now we need to work toward a New York where you don’t have to cross state or country lines to get married.”
…“If a marriage is valid in the state or country in which the marriage took place, New York law generally requires the recognition of that marriage,” said Arthur Eisenberg, the NYCLU’s legal director. “This case involved a straightforward application of that principle.”
…“Today’s decision is a great step forward for same-sex couples in New York,” said James Esseks, Litigation Director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project of the ACLU. “But there is still lots of work to be done here. It’s now up to the state legislature to finish the job it started last year and pass the marriage bill so that lesbian and gay New Yorkers won’t have to leave the state to celebrate their commitments.”
The state Legislature “may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad,” the ruling said. “Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York.”A reader noted that this decision was at the intermediate court level, and the New York Court of Appeal could still grant review, but until then, we’re legal.
Yo Canada, keep your freaks you marry up there and this won’t be a problem.
I am gonna be sick.
John McCain in his Vanity Fair interview last year, SPECIFICALLY STATED he did not care if homosexual based marriage was legal. Remember this on Tuesday. Of course the MSM will not report this until WEDNESDAY.
Except there are states they can get married in also. This court has actually decreed same sex marriage by judicial activism. Those who think we don’t need a constitutional amendment are just wrong. We have out of control courts.
And if Canada decides the value of pi is only 3, we should adopt that convention as well? If gay people choose to be domestic partners, fine. But simply call it something else, and let the new word earn its own place of honor in society.
When nut cases like these arise, I wish they could be heard in a special court and under sharia law.
It’s always the taxpayer’s money that get’s spent on these rulings. Isn’t it? Let’s see about $1000 a month for the next 20 or thirty years. Even if they divorce! If it’s like California all public employee health care plans are top $$$. IMHO it’s a quid pro quo between the politicians and the insurance companies. 14 posted on 02/01/2008 5:33:46 PM PST by 386wt (Be free and don’t die!)
Is everyone here still willing to sit out this Nov. to teach the party a lesson? We did that in ‘06. Only difference this tIme, the Dems. will have carte blanche from the WH down. I am watching in full color, the death of my nation and it makes me physically ill.
THIS IS NOT THE TIME IN HISTORY TO TEACH THE PARTY A LESSON. THIS IS NOT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF OLD. WE ARE NOW FIGHTING GOD-LESS SOCIALISTS!!!!!!!! WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!!
I would like to see a constitutional amendment concerning the definition of marriage for two reasons. First, because it evidently needs defining if the courts can’t quite comprehend this topic. And second, this social engineering by ultraliberals in academia and the judiciary is not going to slow down or stop until the vast majority makes it clear by dint of constitutional amendments that we have had enough of this nonsense and will amend the document every time in the future that their peculiar initiatives and rulings upset us. Call it the tyranny of the majority if you will, but it sure beats the tyranny of the minority and the tyranny of the judiciary we have at work right now tearing down this great nation.
43 Responses to “New York: Appeals court rules state must recognize same-sex Canadian marriages”
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OK, this just rocks!
I always figured that gay rights would happen in the most conservative states first b/c the courts would have to recognize the civil rights violations. But with the current court system, and the Roberts court, I was afraid it was going to go even slower.
Go NY.
Well, at least this Freeper is open about the type of theocracy he wants.
Who’s the patriot?
ACLU press release link
F*%#ING CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Go to New York.
Have a second honeymoon.
Have a second wedding reception.
Invite Freepers, and watch their tiny heads explode.
Then serve cake.
“…and they all lived happily ever after.”
And yet, Caren, he’d probably never ever vote for a fundamentalist Muslim into office for this to take place;)
Go NY!
God the freepers are nutcases! Gay Marriage will lead to the “death of the nation”!?!?! How is that gonna happen exactly? Why do they care so much about OTHER people getting married. Its not exactly like homos such as myself are gonna knock down their doors and force them to gay-marry us. I know, I know, they’re freepers and not the brightest bulbs but these people are on some serious crazy pills.
“It’s now up to the state legislature to finish the job it started last year and pass the marriage bill so that lesbian and gay New Yorkers won’t have to leave the state to celebrate their commitments.”
Eh. So you have to honeymoon on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. [Do newlyweds still go there?]
Fucking hell, Pam, this is fantastic.
Rochester is in the 4th Department of the Appellate Division, probably the most conservative in New York State. And yet closer to the border than New York City.
The Court of Appeals’ ruling on same-sex marriage not being allowed under current state law was based on the old statutes. And because of that ruling, any couple married in Massachusetts after the case was decided was out of luck. But DoMA’s got nothing to do with Canada. And New York’s current law has nothing to do with Canada.
O Canada!
Congratulations! Canada recognizes all U.S. marriages, it seems only fair to reciprocate.
God the freepers are nutcases! Gay Marriage will lead to the “death of the nation”!?!?!
Well, yeah, because all the countries with gay marriage have died! Oh, it doesn’t look like it, but they’re dead inside, for sure.
Freeper says:
Of course! Because it’s a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God.
1 Kings 7:23 — “And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.”
All kidding aside, I’m pretty excited about this, even though I’m not in a relationship and don’t live in New York. Best wishes to all who can take advantage of this new opening, and may it be one step among many.
When I clicked on your wedding link, I received the following warning:
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0
The requested URL http://www.pamspaulding.com/wedding/index.html is infected with Trojan-Clicker.JS.Agent.h virus
I probably said it before, but that is one great wedding picture.
Well, actually, to be parallel, it should be turned around…if the US decides people of the same sex can’t get married, we should adopt that convention as well? Nahhhhh…..
I’m stealing the idea of forcing people to “gay-marry”. I think I’ll tell my husband we have to get divorced so we can properly gay-marry.
Actually, I think I’ve figured out why gay-marriages ruin the nation. We’re a Christian nation, you know, founded on Christian beliefs (even though the Rapture idea is 100 years younger than the nation). In a Christian marriage, the husband is the lord of the house as god is the lord of the church and the wife must submit.
In a gay marriage, who’s the wife? Who wears the pants? Who has to submit to the other? Who’s the slave?
If stereotyped gender roles aren’t a requirement for marriage, then how the hell are the Freeper men gonna keep their wives down on the farm????
And if required female wifely submission is no longer required, then Christian principals will be violated. And the country was founded on those principals! So it will be the death of the country!!!!11!
Fred Phelps will probably protest the country’s funeral.
Seriously, it’s the patriarchy, of course. I blame it!
I am watching in full color, the death of my nation and it makes me physically ill.
Oh crap, I didn’t know it was his country. Here I was thinking it was our country, including all the gays and lesbians who now have an embarassingly tiny sliver of this nation that’ll treat them with some fucking respect.
What a bunch of Goddamn jokers.
Congratulations to everybody who will tie the knot in the coming weeks and months, now that you can. Yet another reason to love New York.
“unanimous decision” “unanimous” Yeah!
Congratulations to everybody who will tie the knot in the coming weeks and months, now that you can. Yet another reason to love New York.
Perhaps there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding.
The court’s ruling does NOT mean that same-sex couples can now legally marry in New York state.
The ruling means that the state will now recognize as valid same-sex marriages that were legal where performed.
At least for as long as the ruling stands and remains unstayed.
Pam, I don’t know how you can continue to read comments on that vile site. Makes my blood pressure go so high so fast my head hurts.
Caren, you’re halfway toward replicating George Lakoff’s theory of moral politics.
“It’s now up to the state legislature to finish the job it started last year and pass the marriage bill so that lesbian and gay New Yorkers won’t have to leave the state to celebrate their commitments.”
Let’s say that you’re a New York legislator who’s moderately undecided on the SSM bill. You don’t really see a reason why two men or two women shouldn’t get married except that it doesn’t really fit into what your definition of marriage is. The civil union type, in other words. Then the courts rule that you have to recognize same-sex marriages that were performed in Canada. Suddenly you get a call from a certain hotel magnate. Yes, that hotel magnate. He’s been doing a fair line in commitment ceremonies, and he’s worried that if New York doesn’t start performing gay marriages then all the gays will have their weddings and attendant parties in Canada, where they’ll be able to get the status and then transfer it to New York. He hints that his wife’s cousin’s considering running for office.
You get the marriage. You vote for authorizing the performance and recognition of same-sex marriages. After all, if the gays are going to get married anyways, why not have them spend their money in New York?
Maureen makes a very strong point. Money talks, and someone will see a business opportunity in this and try to make it happen.
Lee:
If that were going to happen, it would have happened a long time ago.
In the battle between bigotry and profit, I’m putting my money on bigotry every time.
This on the same day that a judge in Oregon dismissed a complaint against that state’s domestic partnership law, allowing it to come into effect. A double whammy day for gays in America!
This IS thrilling, isn’t it? Our local newspaper did a really nice story on it for today as well, WITHOUT all the sensationalism.
An email I got this morning said it all. “Hear that? That’s the sound of DOMA swirling down the drain.”
MMmmm… tears of Freepers. They taste so sweet, it’s like liquid candy!
DOMA is probably unconstitutional (it violates the “Full Faith and Credit” clause), but the court doesn’t seem too interested in upholding the Constitution. (Scalia knows better, but he’ll find a reason to uphold it.)
Uh, no. Just because gay marriage makes you uncomfortable (or is against your religious beliefs) does not mean it should be illegal. Have your own opinion on it, don’t like it, don’t get married to someone of the same sex, but it’s not about you. Conversely, if this makes him have a heart attack, can we have a party at his funeral?This is wonderful.
It will be interesting to see what happens when a case like this gets to a court full of wingnuts, because (as far as I can see) the only way to get around it is to declare that a state (or perhaps any other jurisdication) gets to pick and choose which non-US marriages it honors. (And about 10 seconds after that there will be a loon in Alabama with a bill saying that marriages contracted in muslim countries no longer have the force of US law…)
Wow - it’s the first time in thirty years I’ve been proud to be from Rochester! Way to go, home of the Big Yellow Mother!
(as far as I can see) the only way to get around it is to declare that a state (or perhaps any other jurisdication) gets to pick and choose which non-US marriages it honors
Yep, this is the nub of it: There is already both a substantial body of cases in which federal courts have decided both when to recognize foreign marriages and what the exceptions to that rule ought to be.
Unfortunately there is a pattern in US federal decisions that seems to indicate what Evan Wolfson calls ‘the gay exception’. So there’s no rush to find out which applies, IMNSHO.
Not gay, buried 30+ friends during AIDS, wish you happiness and joy
I love my state!
Ema, I agree! They look so happy, and its just gorgeous.
(Not that I’d expect anything less from a wedding picture, but its one of those pictures of poeple so happy and thrilled to be doing what they’re doing that you can’t help but feel happy yourself.)
Whoever it was who said, in Civil War days, that we should just “let our erring sisters go,” I really think they were right.
I see no reason why we should not only keep these clowns in our country, but support them with hundreds of billions of our tax dollars. Let them live the reality behind their rhetoric, and let their anti-education, anti-freedom, anti-American ethos take their states down to the banana-republic level that they’d so clearly attain without our transfer payments keeping them solvent.
Congratulations! Now that’s two states where you can be married!
I assume this means they would have to acknowledge MA marriages too? That isn’t a small deal in terms of no part of NY being more than about 5 hours’ drive from here (and those parts are a short hop from Canada).
What’s that sound … the sound of Bed and Breakfast places in the Berkshires filling up … non-stop NY wedding bells in NoHo …
I see there’s no link to the ruling, but it should make interesting reading.
The Full Faith and Credit Clause has been used to force each state to recognize a divorce granted legally in another state. My best guess is that the same logic would hold for marriage as soon as some state officially adopts same sex marriage. Then the game is pretty much over.
However, this ruling recognizes a marriage granted in a foreign country. Again, I’d be curious to see the reasoning on this one.
Yay! This is awesome! Go New York! Go ACLU!
gag!
*SO* awesome.
Ah, a little good news goes down fine right now.
“and let the new word earn its own place of honor in society”
Okay, rock, paper, scissors, loser get to be (or struck as) ‘the woman’, and the winner gets to be the one who owns her whole life for the next few centuries, while sleeping around.
Nice! I’m so glad there’s glimmers of hope.
Congratulations, dearies!
The fact that logic-freepers are infuriated? Just frosting on the cake. (But really good frosting…)