N.Y. Top Court Rules Against Gay Marriage

Thursday, July 6, 2006 10:19 AM EDT
The Associated Press

By MARK JOHNSON

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York's highest court ruled Thursday that gay marriage
is not allowed under state law, rejecting arguments by same-sex couples who said
the law violates their constitutional rights.
The Court of Appeals, in a 4-2 decision, said New York's marriage law is
constitutional and clearly limits marriage to between a man and a woman.
Any change in the law would have to come from the state Legislature, Judge
Robert Smith said.


"We do not predict what people will think generations from now, but we believe
the present generation should have a chance to decide the issue through its
elected representatives," Smith wrote.
Gov. George Pataki's health department and state Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer's office had argued New York law prohibits issuing licenses to same-sex
couples. The state had prevailed in lower appeals courts.


"It's a sad day for New York families," said plaintiff Kathy Burke of
Schenectady, who is raising an 11-year-old son with her partner, Tonja Alvis.
"My family deserves the same protections as my next door neighbors."
The judges declined to follow the lead of high court judges in neighboring
Massachusetts, who ruled that same-sex couples in that state have the same right
to wed as straight couples.


The four cases decided Thursday were filed two years ago when the Massachusetts
decision helped usher in a series of gay marriage controversies from Boston to
San Francisco.
With little hope of getting a gay marriage bill signed into law in Albany,
advocates from the ACLU, Lambda Legal and other advocacy groups marshaled forces
for a court fight. Forty-four couples acted as plaintiffs in the suits,
including the brother of comedian Rosie O'Donnell and his longtime partner.
Plaintiff Regina Cicchetti said she was "devastated" by the ruling. But the Port
Jervis resident said she and her partner of 36 years, Susan Zimmer, would fight
on, probably by lobbying the Legislature for a change in the law.
"We haven't given up," she said. "We're in this for the long haul. If we can't
get it done for us, we'll get it done for the people behind us."


In a dissent, Chief Judge Judith Kaye said the court failed to uphold its
responsibility to correct inequalities when it decided to simply leave the issue
to lawmakers.
Kaye noted that a number of bills allowing same-sex marriage have been
introduced in the Legislature over the past several years, but none has ever
made it out of committee.
"It is uniquely the function of the Judicial Branch to safeguard individual
liberties guaranteed by the New York State Constitution, and to order redress
for their violation," she wrote. "The court's duty to protect constitutional
rights is an imperative of the separation of powers, not its enemy. I am
confident that future generations will look back on today's decision as an
unfortunate misstep."


Judge Albert Rosenblatt, whose daughter has advocated for same-sex couples in
California, did not take part in the decision.
Since the Massachusetts ruling, about a dozen states have approved
constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, and 19 now outlaw it. There is now a
push in Massachusetts for a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
A federal lawsuit filed over California's refusal to grant a marriage license to
a gay couple reached the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May. The court,
however, sidestepped the question of whether it was unconstitutional to deny
gays and lesbians the right to marry, leaving the issue to state courts to
decide.

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Notice how what the gay community was fighting for here was not equality and rights as people. No, that was the old agenda. Now they are fighting for the same safeguards and protections as families that heterosexuals have. They want the same subsidies, insurances, government grants, etc. to be guaranteed to them, when it is a scientific and sociological and psychological fact that homosexual relationships damage society in the long run. Yes, I just really said that. And yes, it has been proven in journal after journal in those educational communities. Yet even so, they want that same government to sponsor their way of life.

Here's another conundrum for you: The don't want the
religious folks to say that they are wrong and can't have their way politically, but they are willing to ask the government to politically make a judgement call on a moral and religious issue like the substance of family and what constitutes marriage and what kind of relationship is right or wrong. What happened to their own famed "separation of church and state"? Here it is for the taking folks, it's only applied when they want to use it as defense, never to be used as an offensive weapon against them. Hooray for NY!!! ....hehehehe, never thought that particular thought would go through my mind :-)

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