Poughkeepsie Journal

Thursday, April 8, 2004

13 same-sex pairs sue for right to wed

Action seeks change in state law
The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Thirteen gay and lesbian couples sued New York state Wednesday, seeking to have the law that denies same-sex couples the right to marry declared unconstitutional.

''This is a momentous occasion,'' said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. ''This case is about ending the discrimination that is currently written into the marriage laws of New York, so that gay and lesbian couples and their children can count on the rights and responsibilities that they need in order to look out for each other.''

Jeanne Vitale, who lives in New Paltz with her partner, Amy Tripi, joked, ''For us, this battle can be summed up in two words: wedding presents.''

The Village of New Paltz became a flashpoint of the same-sex marriage issue last winter when Mayor Jason West presided over the marriages of more than two dozen gay couples. He has pleaded not guilty to 24 misdemeanor counts of solemnizing unlicensed marriages.

James Fallarino, spokesman for the New Paltz Equality Initiative, said the suit is a welcome complement to ongoing marriages of same-sex couples in the village.

''This fight needs to take place on multiple fronts,'' he said Wednesday. ''The ceremonies make a strong political statement. ... We're going to continue.''

The NYCLU, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and the law firm Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, filed the lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Albany on behalf of the 13 couples, who include state Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell and his partner, John Banta.

''We have been a couple for 23 years, and yet currently under New York law, we are not permitted a marriage license,'' said O'Donnell, who joined most of the other plaintiffs at a Manhattan news conference announcing the lawsuit. ''The time has come for that to end.''

The suit filed against the state Department of Health charges that state health regulations defining marriage as between a man and a woman violate the state Constitution's equal protection, privacy and due process provisions.

Many of the suing couples had hoped to be married by West, who is now under a temporary restraining order preventing him from presiding over further same-sex marriages. The Equality Initiative has been organizing weddings in West's stead.

Village Trustee Robert Hebel, who obtained the order, said he supports legal efforts to make the state license same-sex marriages.

''I've said this all along,'' he said Wednesday. ''If they feel strongly about it, they should go up to Albany and have the law changed. ... People have the misconception that I'm against gay marriages.''

Fallarino said the ACLU has worked with the initiative to identify couples on a New Paltz marriage waiting list who would fit especially well as plaintiffs. More than 1,000 couples are on the waiting list, he said.

New Paltz schedule changes

The New Paltz ceremonies, conducted each Saturday for several weeks, recently switched to an every-other-week schedule to afford more personal attention to couples.

''Some of the couples who were planning to get married in New Paltz ... are participating in the lawsuit instead,'' Fallarino said.

Wade Nichols, a graduate student at Columbia Teachers College, attended the news conference without his partner, Francis Shen of Taiwan, who cannot apply for U.S. citizenship as a legal spouse could.

''We're a very, very committed couple, and we plan to be together forever and we hope that some day we'll be able to be recognized by at least my government as a legal couple in this country,'' Nichols said.

The lawsuit is one of several that have been filed in New York since the debate over same-sex marriage was spurred by President Bush's support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and by the actions of some elected officials to begin performing the ceremonies.

O'Donnell's sister, former talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell, and her partner, Kelli Carpenter, flew to San Francisco to get married after Mayor Gavin Newsom began marrying gay couples there.

But O'Donnell, an Upper West Side Democrat, has no plans to follow suit.

''I'm a native New Yorker,'' he said. ''I was born here, I was raised here. I went to school here, I work here, I pay taxes here. ... I want to get married here.''

Journal staff writer Gabriel J. Wasserman contributed to this report.