New York: Marriage Equality Scorecard

According to statements on the record (to Gay City News and/ or other media), two Democrats who previously voted no -- Joe Addabbo and Shirley Huntley of Queens -- and three Republicans in the same category -- James Alesi of Fairport, Greg Ball of Brewster, and Joseph Griffo of Utica -- are currently taking no public position on the marriage bill....

Gay City News • Apr 28, 2011

Boehner DOMA Counsel Said Some Laws Not Defensible

The attorney hired by House Republicans to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in the wake of the Obama administration's decision not to fight for the 1996 federal law stated a position in 2005 that is identical to Obama's recent DOMA stance, saying the Bush White House would defend acts of Congress as long as "reasonable arguments can be made in the statute's defense." Testifying at his 2005 conf...

Gay City News • Apr 18, 2011

Bi-National Lesbian Couple Can Press US Marriage Claim

It what appears to be the first such action of its type, an Immigration Judge in Manhattan has adjourned deportation proceedings for the Argentine lesbian spouse of an American citizen to allow the couple to proceed with their application to have their marriage recognized for purposes of federal immigration law. Monica Alcota, 35, who came to the US a decade ago, married her partner of nearly thr...

Gay City News • Mar 23, 2011

With Sweeping Clarity, Prop 8 Struck Down

Walker rejected the defendants' argument that plaintiffs were asking for the court to recognize some new right of same-sex marriage. "Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right," he wrote. "To characterize plaintiffs' objective as 'the right to same-sex marriage' would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy -- namely, marriage...

Gay City News • Aug 5, 2010

Boies, Olson Voice Prop 8 Optimism

As the attorneys wait to return to Walker's courtroom to make final arguments -- later this month or in early April -- Boies said, "I feel very good" about the outcome at this first stage. Walker, he said, outlined the issues he wanted addressed at trial, and if those remain the questions uppermost in his mind, "we win." The attorneys set out to prove three things, Boies explained -- that the rig...

Gay City News • Mar 11, 2010

In Advance of Equality Demo, Thousands Rally Against Gay Marriage

In an event that generously mixed politics and religion, thousands of opponents of marriage equality for same-sex couples rallied outside of the New York City offices of Governor David Paterson on May 17 and called on the State Senate and God to stop the advance of same-sex marriage in New York....

Gay City News • May 17, 2009

NY, NJ Marriage Advocates "Embarrassed"

Last year, an official New Jersey state commission, established at the time civil unions were enacted in 2007, concluded, based on witness testimony in a series of hearings around the state, that the separate institution failed to meet the mandate of equality set out in a State Supreme Court ruling in late 2006. Legislative action is possible in both states this year, and Van Capelle and Goldstei...

Gay City News • Apr 8, 2009