Two men in Oyster Bay
to apply for marriage
license
BY SUSANA ENRIQUEZ,
from the Web, April 28, 2008
Oyster Bay, Apr.27 -- Hoping
to make a statement about the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, two East Hills
men plan to walk into the Oyster Bay town clerk's office at 3:30 p.m. Monday
with $40 and two forms of identification and apply for a marriage license.
Dan Pinello, 58, and Lee Nissensohn, 50, expect they will be denied and they
will remain there until police remove them. "We are middle-aged people; we
prefer not to do this," said Pinello, a government professor at John Jay College
of Criminal Justice. "But we don't have a choice."
Town spokesman Jim Moriarty said only that, "If and when this occurs, the
request will be reviewed consistent with applicable state law."
What the couple calls an "act of civil disobedience" is the culmination of
almost two years of lobbying to push state lawmakers to vote for marriage
equality for same-sex couples.
In 2006, the couple began a letter-writing campaign, targeting thousands of
Nassau County voters younger than 70 who voted in the 2004 and 2006 general
elections.
So far, Pinello said, they have about 1,400 supporters, some of whom said they
will show up Monday.
Tara Keenan-Thomson, the executive director of the Nassau County chapter of the
New York Civil Liberties Union, said she also plans to be there as a neutral
observer.
While residents can apply for a marriage license anywhere in the state, the
couple chose Oyster Bay because it is state Sen. Carl Marcellino's (R- Syosset)
district and their own state senator, Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington), already
supports marriage equality.
Their goal is to get constituents to pressure Marcellino, so that he will
pressure state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick) to bring a gay
marriage bill to the Senate floor for a vote. That bill would make a marriage
valid regardless of the couple's sex.
Kathy Wilson, a Marcellino spokeswoman, said the senator doesn't support gay
marriage. "The state of New York has the position that marriage is between a man
and a woman and the senator supports that position," she said.
The couple has urged supporters to stop by Marcellino's office, less than a
quarter-mile from town hall, on Monday.
Johnson co-sponsored the state senate bill, which was referred to the judiciary
committee, where it has remained since January. A similar bill passed in the
state Assembly last year.
"We are working in Albany to change the law so that an act of civil disobedience
will not be needed in the future," said Johnson's spokesman, Rich Azzopardi.
Pinello and Nissensohn, who have been together for 13 years, said they are not
giving up.
"It's troubling that you don't have the same rights as other couples only
because you're the same sex," said Nissensohn, a dentist with a practice in
Roslyn. "No one is asking for more rights. We just want equivalent rights."
susana.enriquez@newsday.com
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