Court Backs Paterson Regarding Gay Unions - NYTimes.com

Another consistent Victory!! The ADF loses again.


Court Backs Paterson Regarding Gay Unions - NYTimes.com

Court Backs Paterson Regarding Gay Unions
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson was acting within his powers when he issued an executive order requiring government agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside the state, a court ruled on Tuesday.

The decision, issued by Justice Lucy A. Billings of State Supreme Court in the Bronx, a trial-level court, is the latest in a string of rulings by state courts that have upheld the right of same-sex couples who were married in other jurisdictions to have their marital status recognized in New York, even though gay couples may not marry within the state. A bill to allow gay unions passed the State Assembly last year but has not come up for a vote in the Senate.

The suit was filed in June by lawmakers who opposed the governor’s order and by other opponents of same-sex marriage, who argued that Mr. Paterson had effectively usurped the Legislature’s role by issuing the order. The governor said the order, issued in May, was made to protect the state from litigation by gay couples legally married in places like Canada or Massachusetts.

But in her decision to dismiss the suit, Justice Billings rejected the plaintiffs’ reasoning, finding that Mr. Paterson’s order was consistent with state laws that generally require officials to recognize marriages from other jurisdictions and are silent on whether gay marriages should be excluded from that recognition.

“Furthermore,” she wrote, “when partners manifest the commitment to their relationship and family, by solemnizing that commitment elsewhere, through one of life’s most significant events, and come to New York, whether returning home or setting down roots, to carry on that commitment, nothing is more antithetical to family stability than requiring them to abandon that solemnized commitment.”

Jim Campbell, a spokesman for the Alliance Defense Fund — the Arizona group that represented the plaintiffs — said that it would appeal the ruling. “This decision enshrines the radical notion that the State of New York should forfeit its autonomy to define marriage for itself,” he said.

In a statement, Governor Paterson lauded the ruling as “a wise and fair determination of the policy that holds valid same-sex marriages legally performed in other states.” The decision was also praised by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which joined Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo in defending the executive order.

“There has been a steady drumbeat of courts recognizing longstanding New York law as it applies to same-sex couples,” Susan Sommer, a lawyer at the fund, said in a statement.