New Paltz thrust into middle of gay marriage debate

By KEITH EDDINGS
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: March 14, 2004)

NEW PALTZ — The 25 gay marriages that the local mayor performed outside Village Hall two weeks ago startled the nation, but here in the thick of things, the event was just another lurch to the left for a place with a history of progressive politics that began when French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution stepped off the boat centuries ago.

The Huguenots arrived in 1678 and headed inland toward the Shawangunk Mountains, known locally as the Gunks. The Quakers followed, followed in turn by a small school for teaching the classics that opened in 1828 and evolved into the State University of New York at New Paltz. Sojourner Truth ran from her slavemaster's farm here in a seminal event of the abolitionist movement, and the Underground Railroad thrived in the surrounding hills. The village was a rural epicenter for antiwar activity in the 1960s and '70s. Last year, it elected the state's first Green Party mayor.

Gay marriage? Big deal.

"Please come down and support the growth of the first great American civil rights movement of the 21st century," a flier posted on a downtown bulletin board implored on a recent weekday, inviting residents to a join a pep rally for gay marriage at the college campus later in the evening. Other fliers advertised an abortion rights march in Washington, D.C., in April and an upcoming Mardi Gras party at a local bar featuring Monica's Kneepads, a rock group.

"It fits in with the spirit of New Paltz," said Paul Fischer, a 55-year-old retired marketing manager for IBM Corp., whose new career as a bus driver for the village public schools gives him a front-row seat to the conversations children are having on the way to and from school. "Overwhelmingly, the kids are all for it. They think it's a terrific idea. It's a topic of discussion among all but the youngest kids. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to bring it up, but I hear their conversations."

There are holdouts, to be sure.

Local police phoned Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams late Feb. 26 with the news that Mayor Jason West would perform the marriages at Village Hall the next day. A few days after that, Williams ordered West arrested on 19 counts of solemnizing a marriage without a license. And Robert Hebel, the only one of the four village trustees to speak publicly against the mayor (two others helped organize the ceremonies, and a third has said little about them), is leading a drive to impeach West. But even Hebel speaks cautiously on the subject.

"New Paltz shouldn't be known as a community that performs illegal marriages," Hebel said. "I have nothing against gays being married, but the law needs to be changed (to allow that)."

Other residents say they've gotten tired of the pull to the fringes that they say the college students, who make up 2,000 of the village's 6,000 residents, exert over the village. The students give New Paltz a youthful vitality — the median age here is just 22.2 years — but they can exert significant influence over local affairs when they organize, as they did in village elections in May.

"This idea about the kid being the mayor, it's ludicrous," said Bill Allen, a retired phone company employee who spent a recent afternoon drinking Cape Codders at P&G Restaurant and Bar downtown. "He got a lot of college kids to vote for him and so he won."

Otherwise, the harshest reaction to the news that New Paltz had become the second municipality in the United States to marry a same-sex couple — San Francisco was first, but by only two weeks — was a shrug of the shoulders.

In fact, local businesses, college students and several village residents picked up the gay marriage banner after a state Supreme Court justice ordered West to stop performing the marriages until their legality could be resolved. The owner of the Groovy Blueberry, a downtown business that sells '60s paraphernalia, offered to host the ceremonies on a riverfront lot she owns. About 19 couples were married under a tent there last weekend, drawing 400 supporters, and more marriages were performed yesterday. Two Unitarian ministers, including the Rev. Dawn Sangrey of Mount Kisco, performed the marriages.

"We really support the cause, and by the way, when the marriages are on private property, if there's opposition, we can kick them off," said Amy Cohen, the owner of the Groovy Blueberry.

Colonial Florists provided flowers. Old Flame Candles provided party favors. The Gilded Otter, a restaurant, offered free champagne to the married couples.

Along Main Street, Cohen and other merchants pulled the psychedelic tie-dyed T-shirts from their sidewalk racks to make room for newly arrived shirts promoting the village as a gay marriage mill (one design depicts two grooms and invites gay couples to "Say 'I do' to New Paltz"). Cohen said she had sold 50 of the shirts at $20 each (two for $30) by midweek, adding that she is donating 10 percent of the proceeds to West. She doesn't care how he uses it.

"If he needs it to get out of jail," she said, "he can use it for that."

When West said the organizing effort for gay marriage that sprung up in his office at Village Hall had to leave because of his concern that it might be violating the court order against the marriages, the effort moved a few blocks away to the LeFevre House, a pink Victorian bed and breakfast. There, it named itself the "New Paltz Equality Initiative."

The organization began booking marriages from the 1,000 couples who had signed a waiting list on the village Web site, organizing rallies and offering itself as a model for similar efforts, said James Fallarino of Long Island, a 20-year-old junior at the college who was assigned to do public relations for the group.

"I remember when they said they were going to protect human rights for all people," Fallarino said, recalling the campaign that West and his Green Party ticket for village board ran last year. "I thought, 'That's great. But how are they going to do it?' When someone called me on my cell in one of my classes and said, 'James, they're going to marry same-sex couples tomorrow. We need your help,' I thought, 'Well, I guess they figured out how they're going to do it.' "

Later in the evening, a forum on same-sex marriage on the New Paltz campus drew 400 people and quickly evolved into a pep rally.

The event turned somber when Steven Greenfield, the chairman of the New Paltz Green Party, described the effort that "outsiders" have launched to stop gay marriages in the village.

He noted, for one, that a Florida law firm founded by evangelist Jerry Falwell is representing Hebel in his push to impeach West. In addition, he said, Fred Phelps, a Westboro, Kan., minister who leads a virulently anti-gay church that has picketed the gay community at hundreds of events — including the funeral of Matthew Shepherd, a gay University of Wyoming student who was murdered in 1998 — is organizing a protest for New Paltz in the spring. Phelps is also planning a protest in Nyack, whose mayor also supports same-sex marriage.

Otherwise, the event was upbeat.

"I've gotten nothing but support," Fallarino said as he left for home. "Pe 1ople are happy this is happening in our little town."

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