Case Update

An interesting article today:

(New York City) New York State's highest court - the Court of Appeal - will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of banning same-sex marriage on May 31.

The case involves five gay and lesbian couples from Manhattan who were denied marriage licenses in New York City.

Last December an appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that found the ban on gay marriage was illegal. (story)

In a 4-1 ruling the appellate judges said that New York City judge Doris Ling-Cohan erred in overturning the gay marriage ban.

"It couldn't be more fitting that the case seeking to end the discrimination against same-sex couples who want to marry is being heard the day before an entire month celebrating LGBT people and their families," said Susan Sommer, Senior Counsel at Lambda Legal which represents the couples.

In her ruling Ling-Cohan said the state's ban on gay marriage was not only unconstitutional but also that the New York City clerk may not deny a marriage license solely because a couple is of the same sex. (story)

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appealed Ling-Cohan's decision and Lambda in turn appealed the appellate decision.

In Lambda's written brief to the high court it states, in part, that, "This appeal is about far more than abstract legal principles. At heart, it concerns real New York families who share the same love and day-to-day journey together through life that binds married couples."

The lawsuit seeks marriage for same-sex couples in New York and argues that denying these couples marriage violates the state constitution's guarantees of equality, liberty and privacy for all New Yorkers.

This is the first of several lawsuits in New York challenging the ban on same-sex marriage and the first to reach the high court.

Lambda, and other LGBT rights groups have filed similar cases seeking marriage for same-sex couples in California, Washington, New Jersey and Iowa.

The New Jersey case went to that state's Supreme Court on February 15. Arguments were made at the high court in Washington state last year. Decisions in both cases could come at any time.

I forwarded the article to my lawyer and asked for an update on where we were. He apparently forwarded it to the ACLU lawyer, who sent me this response:

Pat,
Jeff has forwarded your inquiry to me because I am acting as the coordinator for all of the legal groups interested in your case. As you may be aware, there are two approaches to attaining the right of same-sex couples to marry: the frontal, all-or-nothing approach, exemplified by the case going to the Court of Appeals and the backdoor, incremental approach which focuses on the various benefits and obligations of marriage. Your case fits into the latter approach. Some of the legal arguments are common to both; some not. Right now Jeff has prepared a brief which I have circulated to the other groups. We want to make sure that we have identified all possible arguments and then we must decide whether to include them in this first brief or hold them for a possible appeal. Once we have finalized the contents of the brief, Jeff can file papers seeking an accelerated judgment. These papers will include the brief. Given the significance of your case, locally, statewide, and nationally, we want to make sure the brief is right.
Scott

Lisa and I had a long talk last night and, after I told her that I wanted to just go ahead and bust the buck to get my last name changed, she said she'd rather spend the money to get all the protections in place that we need. Her name on the deed to the house, my name on her IRA, wills, powers of attorney, health care proxies, stuff like that. Of course she's right. The money would be better spent that way -- or rather, we would get better value from the money that way.

The state comptroller has already announced that same-sex partners will be recognized for retirement benefit purposes for those couples who were legally married in Canada or other jurisdictions where the marriage is legal and binding.

While Lisa's employer has indicated that she views us as legally married, no differently than any heterosexual couple, it's hard to say with any degree of certainty what she would actually do with Lisa's profit sharing plan if something happened to Lisa.

All indicators are that this will be a precedent setting case for New York, and could go as far as SCOTUS. Of course, by the time it reaches SCOTUS, I'll long since have been drawing social security...