By LAURA INCALCATERRA
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: August 26, 2004)

If you're single, divorced, widowed or married, there's a box for you to check on a doctor's office registration sheet or a school enrollment form.

If you're part of a gay couple, there's nothing to check.

That is among the most humiliating situations same-sex couples endure, Elizabeth Inson said.

"I always have to write in 'domestic partner' on forms," the Mamaroneck woman said.

Inson and her partner, Theresa Apuzzo, have known each other since 1990 and have been domestic partners since 1994.

They don't want a massive printing of forms with a "domestic partner" box. They want to be able to marry so they can check that box — and enjoy the privileges that come with the legal status, Inson said.

The women are among the 10 couples who have filed a lawsuit to obtain the right to marry in New York state. The "Nyack 10" have spent their summer waiting for a ruling from the New City courtroom of acting state Supreme Court Justice Alfred Weiner. His ruling could come at any time.

John Ade and Johnnie Farmer are among the plaintiffs. While the New City men don't think they should have to sue, they joined to fight what they called unfair and unjust treatment.

"Those against gay marriage have been very successful in inserting into this discourse the notion of 'special rights,' " Ade said. "It isn't special rights. It's the same rights as everyone else that we are being denied."

The couples, including Nyack village Mayor John Shields and his partner, Bob Streams, filed a lawsuit March 12 against Orangetown Town Clerk Charlotte Madigan and the state Health Department. The lawsuit asks the court to order Madigan to issue marriage licenses to the couples and to order the Health Department to recognize the licenses. It also asks the court to find that the town and state violated the couples' civil rights in denying the licenses.

The couples, represented by attorney Norman Siegel, a former official with the American Civil Liberties Union, filed the lawsuit after they were turned down when they went to Orangetown Town Hall for marriage licenses.

State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said in March that state law did not permit same-sex marriages. Madigan said she was doing her job, based on Spitzer's opinion, when she declined to issue the licenses. The town attorney is representing Madigan.

The state Health Department files certificates for births, deaths and marriages in the state outside New York City. Spitzer's office is representing the department.

The Nyack 10's lawsuit is one of two in New York and several nationwide filed by same-sex couples seeking the right to marry, said Susan Sommer, supervising attorney for Lambda Legal, a national organization that works to protect lesbians and gays. Other lawsuits are in Oregon, New Jersey and Washington, she said.

Sommer said the activism probably was sparked by gay couples who had adopted children. Many grew infuriated when they took their children to school and there was no box for them to check on enrollment forms describing their situation, Sommer said.

As they demanded to be treated equally, they inspired couples without children, she said. Neither Inson and Apuzzo nor Ade and Farmer have children.

Massachusetts in May became the only state to allow same-sex marriage, with that privilege limited to its residents. Vermont affords same-sex couples the same rights and benefits of marriage but calls it a civil union. Most other states ban same-sex marriage.

If you're married, there's a presumption of many rights because of spousal or next-of-kin status, Sommer said. Getting married "would certainly take care of a big range of problems for gay couples," she said. Such rights, Sommer said, include pension benefits that do not continue with a surviving partner but do for married couples, and the automatic right for a partner to visit a loved one in a hospital.

Same-sex marriage is an extremely controversial topic in this country, and many organizations are fighting to prevent such marriages. Among them is Liberty Counsel, a conservative law group based in Orlando, Fla.

Mathew Staver, the group's president and general counsel, said the organization had filed lawsuits and obtained injunctions to stop New Paltz Mayor Jason West and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom from performing marriages of gay couples.

In June, misdemeanor criminal charges that Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams had brought against West for performing the weddings were dismissed. In dismissing the charges, New Paltz Town Justice Jonathan Katz determined New York's marriage laws were unconstitutional because they discriminated against gays, and the state had no legitimate interest in banning gay marriage.

Two weeks ago, the California state Supreme Court invalidated the marriages Newsom conducted, ruling he had overstepped his authority.

Staver said it was wrong to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because doing so changed the institution of marriage. He said marriage was not only a private institution but also a public one that long had allowed society to function properly. The union of a man and woman alone created the family, and that union alone is the only thing that will maintain the family, he said.

Inson said the lack of equal rights was frustrating and degrading.

"When I see somebody like Britney Spears able to go out and get married after knowing someone for, like, 48 hours, and here we've been together for all these years, and we're not allowed to get married, it's just not right," Inson said.

Ade said heterosexual and same-sex couples had to be treated equally, or it violated the right to equality granted to every American by the Constitution.