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By Cyd Zeigler Jr.
Friday, April 09, 2004
The American Civil Liberties Union has joined the parade of litigation seeking
same-sex marriages. The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the State of New York on
Wednesday, April 7, seeking to strike down as unconstitutional a law that denies
mariage rights. Similar lawsuits were filed in March by Lambda Legal Defense
and Education Fund and another on behalf of group that the media has nicknamed “The
Nyack 10,” led by Nyack, N.Y., Mayor John Shields.
The ACLU lawsuit, filed in state court in Albany by the ACLU along with the
New York Civil Liberties Union and the law firm Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison,
represents 13 couples from across New York state. Many of the couples had hoped
to be married by New Paltz Mayor Jason West, but were unable to do so after
he was forced to stop performing marriages for same-sex couples.
“Denying two people in a loving, committed relationship the right to
marry one another denies that couple the opportunity to express their commitment
in the most serious way that society provides,” the complaint reads. “Being
excluded from this institution thus brands same-sex couples with the stigma
of inferiority.”
While the other two lawsuits were filed weeks before the ACLU’s, Matt
Coles, director of the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, said each
lawsuit had a strategic purpose in its timing.
The suits from Lambda and Nyack “made sure that everyone knew that legal
groups would respond,” Coles said. “We filed later because we wanted
to comb through and find couples who illustrated the breadth of how this issue
matters.”
The couples in the ACLU’s suit come from many parts of the state, including
Binghamton, Schenectady, Port Jervis, West Hurley, Mount Vernon, White Plains,
Brooklyn and Manhattan.
One of the plaintiffs is Assembly member Danny O’Donnell (D-Upper West
Side), who has been in a committed relationship with his partner, John Banta,
since they met on the first day of college. They have not registered as domestic
partners in New York City “because nothing short of marriage is acceptable
to them,” the legal complaint says.
Another couple is Wade Nichols of New York City and Francis Shen of Taiwan,
who cannot live in the same country because the immigration laws of both countries
do not recognize their relationship. Shen (a Taiwanese citizen) cannot stay
for long periods in the United States and Nichols (a United State citizen)
cannot stay for long periods in Taiwan without work sponsorship. A marriage
would allow them to do so.
At least two lesbian couples in the suit have experienced problems with hospital
visitation rights.
“The couples in this lawsuit represent just a few of the thousands of
same-sex couples in New York who are being denied the basic rights that millions
of married couples enjoy across the state,” said Roberta Kaplan of Paul,
Weiss.
Coles also said that the three suits now before the New York state courts
represent different things. The complaint from Nyack is against the city clerk
that rejected the marriage license requests of the 10 couples in the suit.
Their argument says that the state law does not prohibit same-sex marriage,
so the clerks should be issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Coles
said.
The Lambda and ACLU suits are relatively similar in that they claim the marriage
statute doesn’t allow same-sex couples marry and that that is unconstitutional. “Article
1, Sections 6, 8 and 11 of the New York State Constitution guarantee same-sex
couples the right to marry. Because the relevant provisions of the New York
State Domestic Relations Laws (the ‘DRL’) do not permit same-sex
couples to marry, the statute, on its face, is unconstitutional,” the
complaint reads.
Coles also said that three different courts will be hearing the different
cases.
“New York is divided into four departments for its intermediate appeals
court,” Coles explained. The Lambda and Nyack cases are filed in the
first and second departments, respectively, while the ACLU case is in the third
department, which covers Albany.
While there is a chance the courts could roll all three cases into one, because
they’ll be heard by three different courts, it’s much more likely
that the two lagging cases would join the first one to get to the Court of
Appeals as friends of the court, Coles said.
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