State agencies in New York are going to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside the state, thanks to a decision by Gov. David Paterson. “The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses,” according to the Times.
This is great news, but there are a couple of interesting things about it. One, the governor’s office issued a directive announcing the new policy on May 14 (the day before the California court decision, incidentally). Why did it take two weeks to get reported? The article states that the governor discussed the move in a videotaped message to a dinner of gay community leaders on May 17. (Here’s the video and text of the message.) So the people at the dinner knew about it. Why didn’t the Times, or any other news organization, report it until now?
The other interesting thing is the question of where the legal authority comes from. As much as I think it’s a great decision, at first it seemed odd to me that the governor could just do this unilaterally. Isn’t it such a big deal that the legislature should get involved?
But I realized it’s not. A state appellate court ruled on February 1 that there’s no reason not to recognize valid same-sex marriages performed out of state; state policy is to recognize any marriage validly performed out of state unless there’s a state law prohibiting it, and New York has no law prohibiting same-sex marriages. (Here’s the court decision.) If the legislature cared about banning same-sex marriage, it could have followed the lead of the numerous other states that have done so. But it hasn’t.
This is a beautiful move on the governor’s part. Because even though it’s a big deal for same-sex couples that want to get married, and even though it might seem like a big deal to people who think the world will fall apart if same-sex couples can get married, it’s just a run-of-the-mill policy interpretation. The governor is showing that it’s really not a big deal to just go ahead and treat people equally.
Hopefully the Republican-controlled state senate will realize this as well and stop blocking a marriage equality law.
It’s especially good that he’s not an “activist judge.” Although, some people might argue that he’s still “subverting democracy” because the people didn’t actually vote for him, he just got lucky that Spitzer resigned.
I wonder if Spitzer would have taken this step?
Those people would be wrong, of course, since the people did vote for Paterson. Spitzer selected him as his running mate, and the whole point of the lieutenant governor is to replace the governor if something happens to him. Spitzer was also in favor of marriage equality, at any rate. He’s the attorney general who issued an official opinion that New York should recognize same-sex marriages validly performed out of state and was on the record as supporting same-sex marriage.
That lot has never really been known to let facts stand in their way ;)
I’m just waiting for a monkey to fly out of your ass should a REPUBLICAN ever think it’d be ok to introduce and pass an equality bill for anyone whose name doesn’t start with Bear and end in Sterns.
I still think government involvement in marriage is tantamount to non separation of church and state. Let two (or more) people come together as they will in their marriage, and let it be driven by the values that those involved bring to the table. Keep the government out of it except for benefits involved (i.e. recognize all unions).
I personally believe in normal marriage, but I refuse to put my personal beliefs on others. I guess it has to do with respecting others.
Same argument applies to any and all legislation of “morals” or anything based on a particular religion (i.e. Christian marriage, abortion, stem cell research, etc). Doesn’t belong in the government scope. Even Jesus alluded to it.
Jonathan