Two men in Oyster Bay to apply for marriage license -- Newsday.com

Two men in Oyster Bay to apply for marriage license -- Newsday.com


BY SUSANA ENRIQUEZ

susana.enriquez@newsday.com

April 28, 2008

Hoping to make a statement about the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, two East Hills men plan to walk into the Oyster Bay town clerk's office at 3:30 p.m. today with $40 and two forms of identification and apply for a marriage license.

Dan Pinello, 58, and Lee Nissensohn, 50, expect they will be denied and they will remain there until police remove them.

"We are middle-aged people; we prefer not to do this," said Pinello, a government professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "But we don't have a choice."

Town spokesman Jim Moriarty said only that, "If and when this occurs, the request will be reviewed consistent with applicable state law."

What the couple call an "act of civil disobedience" is the culmination of almost two years of lobbying to push state lawmakers to vote for marriage equality for same-sex couples.

In 2006, the couple began a letter-writing campaign, targeting thousands of Nassau County voters younger than 70 who voted in the 2004 and 2006 general elections. So far, Pinello said, they have about 1,400 supporters, some of whom said they will show up today.

Tara Keenan-Thomson, the executive director of the Nassau County chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said she also plans to be there as a neutral observer.

While residents can apply for a marriage license anywhere in the state, the couple chose Oyster Bay because it is the district of Sen. Carl Marcellino (R- Syosset) and their own state senator, Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington), already supports marriage equality.

Their goal is to get constituents to pressure Marcellino, so that he will pressure State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick) to bring a same-sex marriage bill to the Senate floor for a vote. That bill would make a marriage valid regardless of the couple's sex.

Kathy Wilson, a Marcellino spokeswoman, said the senator opposes same-sex marriage.

"The State of New York has the position that marriage is between a man and a woman and the senator supports that position," she said.

The couple has urged supporters to stop by Marcellino's office, less than a quarter-mile from town hall, today.

Johnson co-sponsored the State Senate bill, which was referred to the judiciary committee and it has remained there since January. A similar bill passed in the Assembly last year.

"We are working in Albany to change the law so that an act of civil disobedience will not be needed in the future," said Johnson's spokesman, Rich Azzopardi.

Pinello and Nissensohn, who have been together for 13 years, said they are not giving up.

"It's troubling that you don't have the same rights as other couples only because you're the same sex," said Nissensohn, a dentist with a practice in Roslyn. "No one is asking for more rights. We just want equivalent rights."

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