NY recognizes
Canadian same-sex marriages
Kelly Patterson,
Canada.com from the Web, August 18, 2007
In a landmark case, an American court
has ruled that gay couples who tie the knot in Canada can be treated as legally
married in the state of New York.
Justice Joan Lefkowitz of the New York Supreme Court ruled last week that
same-sex marriages performed outside the country are valid, even though gay New
Yorkers cannot be legally married in their home state.
This is the first time Canadian same-sex marriage laws have triumphed in U.S.
court, according to Alphonso David, a lawyer for the gay rights group Lambda
Legal, which intervened in the case.
"Couples can go to sleep at night without worrying about the security of their
status," says David.
"I feel vindicated," his client, Robert Voorheis, told reporters after the March
12 ruling. "When I say, 'I'm married,' I'm married."
Voorheis and his partner, both of Yonkers, N.Y., were married in Niagara Falls,
Ont., four years ago.
"This is extremely important," says Andrew Koppelman, a Northwestern University
law professor and expert on the issue.
If the ruling holds up on appeal, "it will mean for all practical purposes,
same-sex marriage is legal in the state of New York," because people can easily
cross the border to get married, said Koppelman.
While the lower-court ruling is not technically binding on other state courts,
it's significant in that "it says you can recognize a (same-sex marriage) even
if locally you can't perform it," and lays out historical examples of that
recognition, explains Mark Strasser, a law professor at Capital University in
Columbus, Ohio, who has written extensively on same-sex marriage.
The case centered on a 2006 order by Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano
that county officials must recognize same-sex marriages from other
jurisdictions.
A conservative Arizona-based group called the Alliance Defense Fund took Spano
to court, arguing his order violated the state's constitution and municipal
laws.
Last summer, the New York Court of Appeal upheld the state's century-old
definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
But Lefkowitz found that ruling did not address the issue of marriages performed
outside the state.
She then applied the legal test of comity, the principle that countries should
recognize each other's laws on marriage and other such issues as long as they
don't offend community values or run strongly against public policy.
(Polygamy, for example, is accepted in some countries but not in the U.S.).
She noted that, historically, New York has on many occasions recognized foreign
marriages that could not have been legally performed in the state.
She found there has been a sea change in attitudes toward gay marriage, noting
the "expanding recognition of rights accorded homosexuals, lesbians and
transsexuals."
Both the state's attorney general and comptroller have publicly supported the
extension of spousal rights to same-sex partners, and other court rulings and
laws have recently granted gay couples inheritance and adoption rights, she
noted, concluding that same-sex marriages do not offend community values.
"We're very disappointed in the ruling," says Brian Raum, a lawyer for the
Alliance Defense Fund. He plans to appeal, noting other New York courts
have recently denied spousal status in two similar cases. Those rulings are
being appealed.
Court cases testing the validity of Canadian same-sex marriages are rare in the
U.S., where most states have Defense of Marriage Acts defining marriage as a
union between a man and a woman, and specifically forbidding the recognition of
out-of-state gay marriages.
New York is one of only four states with no such law on the books.
Only the state of Massachusetts allows gay marriage, although gays can access
some of the benefits of marriage through civil unions or "domestic partnerships"
in states such as California and Vermont.
None of these arrangements are recognized by the U.S. federal government, which
passed a Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.
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