New York Court Rules Gays Must Be Allowed To Marry

UPDATE: Here’s the full text of Judge Ling-Cohan’s decision. Thanks, Karpad! Her arguments are pretty much what you’d expect, but still a pleasure to read. Of particular note to feminists: she points out that the logic of “you can’t change traditional marriage,” if taken seriously, would have prevented courts from outlawing marital rape.

From 365gay.com:

(New York City) A New York State court ruled Friday that same-sex couples must be allowed to marry.

State Supreme Court Judge Doris Ling-Cohan said that the New York State Constitution guarantees basic freedoms to lesbian and gay people, and that those rights are violated when same-sex couples are not allowed to marry.

The ruling said the state Constitution requires same-sex couples to have equal access to marriage, and that the couples represented by Lambda Legal must be given marriage licenses.

Note that in New York, “State Supreme Courts” are not actually the highest state courts, so this isn’t a settled matter at all. A different New York court had already ruled against marriage equality, so (if I understand things correctly) the next step is for the issue to be resolved by the highest-level New York State courts, which is the New York Court of Appeals (I think).

Also, Judge Ling-Cohan stayed her decision for 30 days to allow for an appeal. Since there’s sure to be an appeal, the decision will not take effect anytime soon. Still, it’s good news. Thanks to “Alas” reader Zuzu for the tip.

Irony update: Judge Ling-Cohan noted that “one plaintiff in the case, Curtis Woolbright, is the son of an interracial couple who moved to California in 1966 to marry. She said California then was the only state whose courts had ruled that interracial marriage prohibitions were unconstitutional.”

And yet another update: Happily, New York’s constitution is hard to amend, so if the homophobes want to cut lesbians and gays out of equal protection, they’ll have a harder time doing so in NY than in many other states.

Any amendment or amendments to this constitution may be proposed in the senate and assembly whereupon such amendment or amendments shall be referred to the attorney-general whose duty it shall be within twenty days thereafter to render an opinion in writing to the senate and assembly as to the effect of such amendment or amendments upon other provisions of the constitution. Upon receiving such opinion, if the amendment or amendments as proposed or as amended shall be agreed to by a majority of the members elected to each of the two houses, such proposed amendment or amendments shall be entered on their journals, and the ayes and noes taken thereon, and referred to the next regular legislative session convening after the succeeding general election of members of the assembly, and shall be published for three months previous to the time of making such choice; and if in such legislative session, such proposed amendment or amendments shall be agreed to by a majority of all the members elected to each house, then it shall be the duty of the legislature to submit each proposed amendment or amendments to the people for approval in such manner and at such times as the legislature shall prescribe; and if the people shall approve and ratify such amendment or amendments by a majority of the electors voting thereon, such amendment or amendments shall become a part of the constitution on the first day of January next after such approval. Neither the failure of the attorney-general to render an opinion concerning such a proposed amendment nor his or her failure to do so timely shall affect th [sic] validity of such proposed amendment or legislative action thereon.

In other words, an amendment has to pass through both legislative houses twice – that’s a total of four chances to block it – and then be approved by a majority of voters before the NY state constitution can be amended to exclude queers from having civil rights. In most states, that would be easy, but the queer-bashing, bigoted campaigns the anti-SSM folks ran in states like Oregon and Ohio this past election won’t play very well in a lot of New York. If the anti-SSM folks don’t defeat this in the courts, they might not be able to defeat it at all. (Info via reader comments in Kos).

Steve at SoVo Blog points out the possible political significance of this decision:

A victory on same-sex marriage is crucial to the marriage equality movement. In order to demonstrate to the rest of the country that the sky won’t fall with legalization of gay marriages, we need states with large gay populations to serve as experiments. Putting New York in the gay marriage column will immediately benefit gay New Yorkers and go a long way in spreading it, even to those of us residing in the red states, eventually.

While this is a positive step, it’s a long way before gay couples can begin getting married in New York. There will be many appeals and no doubt legislative debate on the issue. Unlike most states, the New York State Supreme Court is not the final word in judicial matters.