NEW YORK (ABP) — Recent rulings in Oregon and New York have provided victories for supporters of same-sex unions and setbacks for gay-rights opponents.
A New York appellate panel ruled unanimously that, although the Empire State does not allow same-sex marriages, it must recognize such unions legally performed in other states.
In Oregon, meanwhile, gay couples can enter into legal domestic partnerships — a federal judge allowed a law approving them to take effect despite petitions from opponents.
The New York ruling, delivered Feb. 1 by a five-judge panel of the state Supreme Court Appellate Division, overturned a lower court's 2006 ruling. It said a state employee who married her lesbian partner in Canada must receive the same recognition as a heterosexual woman legally married in another jurisdiction.
“The Legislature may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad,” the court said. “Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York.”
The court depended on the state's century-old practice of recognizing marriages performed elsewhere, even when such marriages could not have been performed in the state. For example, the court noted, the state recognizes close relatives married elsewhere, even though they would not have been eligible for a New York marriage license.
The state's highest court — the New York Court of Appeals — ruled in 2006 that the state's charter neither requires nor bans marriage rights for same-sex couples. The appeals panel cited the ruling in saying that, unless legislators move to ban it explicitly, same-sex marriage is not contrary to the state's public policy. Therefore, under New York's marriage-recognition doctrine, legal gay unions from other states and from abroad will remain legal for state purposes.
In Oregon, hundreds of same-sex couples filed into courthouses Feb. 4 to apply for legal domestic-partner status after United States District Judge Michael Mosman ruled that a new law allowing such partnerships should take effect.
The law — approved last year by the Oregon Legislature — was set to take effect Jan. 1. But Mosman stayed its implementation to look into allegations from anti-gay-rights groups that attempted to bring the law up for a statewide vote.
The petition drive to place the law on the November 2008 ballot fell only 96 votes short of the 55,179 it required. Supporters of the repeal — including several Christian organizations — said election officials had unfairly disqualified many signatures and there is not a consistent statewide standard for validating signatures.
But Mosman, after an inquiry into the subject, said the state's standard for validating petition signatures is sufficiently consistent to allow the law to take effect.
Gay couples who register as domestic partners in Oregon will get similar state rights and responsibilities as married couples. With the law, Oregon joins nine other states and the District of Columbia in offering some form of legal recognition for same-sex couples. Massachusetts remains the only U.S. jurisdiction that offers gay couples full marriage rights.
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Read more:
Oregon, New Hampshire latest states set to recognize gay relationships (5/4/2007)
Courts in New York, Georgia deal blows to gay-marriage backers (7/7/2007)