Gay-marriage advocates hail NY vote as important step in nationwide battle
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NORTHAMPTON - New York's move to legalize same-sex marriage is another important step toward marriage equality nationwide, local observers said Monday.
The Empire State Senate passed the legislation by a 33-29 vote Friday, touching off ebullient celebration at New York City's 42nd annual gay pride march two days later. Lesbian and gay couples will be able to begin marrying July 24.
"This is the big time. New York is a big state," said Suzanne Seymour, executive director of the Northampton-based Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Coalition of Western Massachusetts.
New York is now the sixth state where gay marriage is legal. Massachusetts blazed the trail in 2004 after the Supreme Judicial Court, in a 4-3 ruling, found that same-sex couples are entitled to wed under the state constitution. In later years, courts in Connecticut and Iowa reached similar conclusions, while Vermont and New Hampshire enacted laws allowing gay marriage.
It is also legal in Washington, D.C., and among members of the Coquille Indian Tribe in Oregon.
Efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in other states, including Maine, New Jersey and California, have failed in recent years. But some say the tide is turning.
"It's not a fast-moving train, but it's moving forward," said J.M. Sorrell of Northampton. "The overall societal norms are continuing to shift towards an acknowledgement that it's a right, that it's about equality."
Sorrell has been a justice of the peace since same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts. Since 2008, when it became legal for out-of-state couples to wed here, Sorrell said the majority of couples she weds have come from New York.
Although she has a separate, full-time job, Sorrell said New York's new law is likely to take away some of her justice of the peace business. It's a loss she said she's willing to accept.
Gricel M. Ocasio, publisher of the Northampton-based Rainbow Times, said the fact four Republican New York state senators broke ranks to vote in favor of same-sex marriage is a positive sign.
Ocasio said she was particularly impressed by Sen. Mark Grisanti, who according to the New York Times said, "I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is, the same rights that I have with my wife."
"He put his duty in front of his beliefs, and we believe that's what should happen with this issue," Ocasio said.
Northampton attorney Bernadette Stark, a Brooklyn native, said she followed the debate closely and was "ecstatic when the law passed."
But as a specialist in family and immigration law, Stark said there's a larger problem states cannot address. The federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, is still on the books despite legal challenges from several states and advocacy groups, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's finding that it is unconstitutional.
The law denies benefits to same-sex couples and does not recognize marriages involving immigrants, Stark said. "This law's just literally breaking families apart," she said.
Seymour, of the LGBT Coalition, said she believes the prospects are still good for President Obama to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act as more states recognize same-sex couples.
Meanwhile, as the gay marriage debate played out in the New York Legislature, some Methodist clergy around the country took a stand against their church's policy barring same-sex weddings or civil unions.
According to published reports, hundreds of deacons, elders and pastors in New England, Illinois and Minnesota have pledged to perform the rites nonetheless.
The Rev. Bruce Arbour of Christ United Methodist Church in Northampton said the issue has long been debated in regional and national Methodist conferences. "The gap had been closing" in favor of same-sex marriage, but the last national conference in 2008 took a more conservative turn, he said.
Despite the recent protests, Arbour said it's unlikely the policy will change at the next national conference in 2012.
"I am very much in favor of same-sex marriage," Arbour said. "I don't see anything biblically that forbids it."
Still, Arbour said he will not go against church policy by performing a same-sex marriage.
James F. Lowe can be reached at jlowe@gazettenet.com.
