Recognition of gay marriages in NY faces battle By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 30, 2:18 AM ET



ALBANY, N.Y. - Religious and social conservatives vowed Thursday to fight Gov. David Paterson's directive requiring state agencies to recognize gay marriages performed legally elsewhere, saying it flouts traditional values and is a big step toward legalizing same-sex unions in New York.


"The definition of marriage predates recorded history," said New York State Catholic Conference Executive Director Richard E. Barnes. "No single politician or court or legislature should attempt to redefine the very building block of our society in a way that alters its entire meaning and purpose."

Paterson issued a memo earlier this month saying that gay New Yorkers who marry where it is legal will have the right to share family health care plans, receive tax breaks by filing jointly, enjoy stronger adoption rights and inherit property.

He cited a February ruling in a New York Appellate Division court in which the judges determined that there is no legal impediment in New York to the recognition of a same-sex marriage.

Earlier this month, the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage in the nation's most populous state is legal. The ruling overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage.

At a Manhattan news conference on Thursday, Paterson, a Roman Catholic, defended the directive, saying failure to issue it would have left the state open to lawsuits claiming the state deprived gay couples of civil rights enjoyed in other states.

"We have a time-held and time-tested tradition honoring those marital rights," Paterson said. "I am taking the same approach that this state always has with respect to out-of-state or marriages conducted in foreign governments being recognized here in the state of New York. I am following the law as it has always existed."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, traveling with the President on Thursday, said she had only seen a brief report about the directive.

"I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people who analyze the legal ramifications of it. I think the President's point is that judges shouldn't be making these decisions; the people should be making these decisions," Perino said.

Earlier Thursday, state Senate Republican Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who opposes gay marriage, questioned the constitutionality of Paterson's action but said he hadn't yet seen the memo.

Bruno said the state's highest court has found gay marriage isn't legal within the state. The high court hasn't yet taken up the issue of whether gay marriages performed legally out of state are valid in New York.

"You have to understand that the court, the highest court here in New York state, made it very very clear that the only union that is legal in New York state, to perform a marriage ceremony, is between a man and a woman," Bruno said, citing a 2006 Court or Appeals ruling.

Last year, the Democrat-led Assembly passed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, but the Senate didn't take up the bill. A vote in the Senate is considered even less likely this year, a legislative election year in which the Republicans are hoping to cling to its majority by appealing in part to its more conservative base.

Massachusetts is the only U.S. state that recognizes same-sex marriage, but its residency requirements bar New Yorkers from marrying there. Canada is among the nations where gay marriage is legal.

In California, gay couples will be able to wed beginning June 17 — unless that state's Supreme Court decides to stay its own ruling.

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WHY CAN'T WE SEE THAT WHEN WE BLEED WE BLEED THE SAME." (MUSE)

The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision." ~Lynn Lavner

They can have their marriage to themselves as soon as there are no legal benefits of being married, I say. Gay couples carry just as much of a load as straight couples do, so it's really just ridiculous that married straight couples get benefits that gay couples simply aren't allowed to get, or apparently even have if they've already gotten them elsewhere.

Bah, right-wing nuts. Stigmatize abortion, and do your best to make things harder for the largest group of people willing to adopt. Sounds like a good idea.

The idea is to help straight couples reproduce, multiply.
Homo couples can not reproduce, why should they have the same benefits?

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Victory in Iraq

Then, if that were true, why is it not a requirement that those who marry have children and those who have children marry?


LOL....I know many gay couples with children. Take your blinders off.

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"I consider Homo anal sex to be a religion." - Wow, AWE poster.

Because gay couples gladly adopt the children that heterosexuals who can't stop humping each other don't want? Either homosexuals need the same benefits so they aren't disadvantaged, or we need something to prevent those heterosexuals from multiplying like crazy.

Besides, marriage isn't and never was about "helping couples reproduce". Even if it was, it's pretty clear that they don't need help. Seriously. Abortion is one of the main political issues today, do you really think they wouldn't manage to reproduce without marriage?

>>>That's benefit enough for me, by golly.

First, how can anyone know what the definition of marriage was before there was any recording of history? Does Barnes have a time machine which allows him to go back before recorded history in order to ask people before recorded history what the definition of marriage is before recorded history?

Second, it is clear that for most of recorded history, polygamy was the norm, along with plural marriage in some areas, so the history shows that "... single politician or court or legislature should attempt to redefine the very building block of our society in a way that alters its entire meaning and purpose" has been the rule, not the exception. I'm guessing that the Pope, one person, redefined marriage to outlaw polygamy, and I don't think the Pope would have accepted the demand for a vote on banning polygamy.

But then again, that's only for Catholics, while Islam with four times as many followers as the Pope says that a man can have up to four wives. Then again, that was a statement by one man to bring order to the current custom which includes some who thought many wives was good and others that thought a man should be limited to one wife.

Clearly arguing from antiquity is a logical fallacy because the logical conclusion is that the US laws prohibiting polygamy are wrong, and that the Catholic church rule of one wife is also wrong because that was a ruling by just one man.

Marriage is absolutely unnessessary for procreative activities.

By your "reasoning", sterile people should be banned from marriage, or people who have no intentions of having children, or widows/widowers looking for a companion to fill in their remaining days.

Feel free to source which laws in this nation demand that children are a requirement of marriage.

Yay Canada doing everything the good USA couldn't and can't do. XD XD XD

"Canada is among the nations where gay marriage is legal."

__________________
WHY CAN'T WE SEE THAT WHEN WE BLEED WE BLEED THE SAME." (MUSE)

The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision." ~Lynn Lavner

Been almost twelve hours.

No takers?