NY Court to Make Final Say on Gay Marriage Case
A more than two-year-long gay ‘‘marriage’’ battle will be taken up in a final hearing by the state's highest court on Wednesday as churches across the state gathered the night before the court makes its final say.
NEW YORK - A more than two-year-long gay ‘‘marriage’’ battle will be taken up in a final hearing by the state's highest court on Wednesday. Gay marriage advocates have set their sights on this day hopeful of marriage licenses as Christians have kept up peaceful protests over the past two years.
High interest in the cases involving five New York City couples who were denied marriage licenses in 2004 is bringing the court to the Internet with live broadcast scheduled for the 2 p.m. hearing in Albany. Churches across the state were reported to have gathered the night before the Court of Appeals makes its final say.
Attorneys for the gay couples are expected to argue that the current law prohibiting same-sex marriage violates the state constitution's guarantee of "equality, liberty and privacy for all New Yorkers."
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"We have kind of had our sights set on this day for the last two years," said Susan Sommers, the senior attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the firm representing the couples, according to The New York Sun. "We're glad to be closer to the day when hopefully they'll be able to marry."
A poll conducted in March by Global Strategies showed 53 percent of New Yorkers support gay marriage, up from 47 percent in 2004.
City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Sunday he would work to legalize gay marriages regardless of the high court's ruling. Although expressing firm opposition to the constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriages, Bloomberg did not issue marriage licenses to the couples and said he wouldn't unless the court decides in the couples' favor, according to CNN.
"Can anyone realistically expect New York City’s Corporation Counsel to sincerely advocate against the plaintiff’s position and argue they should not be entitled to have gay marriage when the New York City Mayor has openly stated that he supports gay marriage?" said New York State Senator Rev. Ruben Diaz (D-Bronx) in a statement released Tuesday.
Diaz, also president of the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization, had gathered tens of thousands of Hispanic Christians from the five boroughs of New York City in 2004 to demonstrate support for the Marriage Protection Act.
A lower court ruling in February 2005 had ruled in favor of the same-sex couples, calling the ban against gay marriages a violation of the state constitution. The decision was overturned by the state appeals court in December.
Diaz quoted Justice Milton Williams, who wrote for the majority of the five-judge panel of the New York Supreme Court appellate division, saying such decisions should be left up to legislators.
"The legislative policy rationale is that society and government have a strong interest in fostering heterosexual marriage as the social institution that best forges a linkage between sex, procreation and child rearing. It systematically regulates heterosexual behavior, brings order to the resulting procreation and ensures a stable family structure for the rearing, education and socialization of children," Williams had stated.
The state court's final decision comes as the Senate is scheduled to vote the week of June 5 on a constitutional amendment that defines marriage to be only between a man and a woman. Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll showed that the majority of Americans (58 percent) oppose redefining marriage to include homosexuals.
