New York Journal News

13 gay couples sue for right to marry

By KEITH EDDINGS
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: April 8, 2004)

NEW YORK — Thirteen gay and lesbian couples, including one from White Plains and another from Mount Vernon, sued New York state yesterday, seeking to declare the law that denies same-sex couples the right to marry unconstitutional.

"Same-sex couples who commit to each other and build a life together need the protection of the law just as straight couples do," said Matt Coles, director of the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. "The lives of the couples in this case show all too vividly how unfair it is to deny them that protection."

The NYCLU, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and a Manhattan firm, filed the lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Albany on behalf of the 13 couples, including Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell and his partner of 23 years, John Banta. O'Donnell's sister is comedienne Rosie O'Donnell, who was married at a ceremony in San Francisco in February to her partner, Kelli Carpenter.

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

Spokesmen for the state Department of Health did not return a phone call seeking comment about the suit, but the department has said the state's domestic relations law prohibits same-sex marriages. Last month, a week after New Paltz Mayor Jason West married 25 gay couples in a parking lot outside Village Hall, the department asked Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to seek a court injunction blocking West from performing additional marriages.

Spitzer declined to seek the injunction, but later issued an opinion agreeing with the Health Department's view of the law. West is facing misdemeanor charges for performing the weddings even though the village clerk refused to issue marriage licenses to the couples.

The lawsuit filed yesterday is titled Samuels and Gallagher, et. al., v. New York Department of Health, after Sylvia Samuels and Diane Gallagher, the Mount Vernon women who are the first plaintiffs listed in the action. The two, a couple for 24 years, raised Samuels' two children from a prior relationship and now have three grandchildren, according to the ACLU. Samuels, 54, is a computer information technology specialist, although she stopped working after she was diagnosed with liver cancer. Gallagher, 53, teaches social studies in a New York City high school.

Heather McDonnell and Carol Snyder of White Plains also joined the suit. McDonnell, 50, is an administrator at Sarah Lawrence College. Snyder, 59, is a teacher in New York City. The two have been together 14 years.

Both couples said they have suffered discrimination by health care providers who refused to recognize their relationships. For example, Gallagher said doctors in North Carolina blocked her from the emergency room where Samuels was being treated after she was hit by a car while riding her bicycle four years ago, saying she didn't "look like" she could be related to Samuels. The couple said they filed the suit to force the state to recognize their relationship so that Gallagher would not be shut out of hospital rooms again if Samuels' cancer requires her to be hospitalized.

Neither couple could be reached yesterday.