GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

The news that New York Gov. David Paterson plans to order his state’s agencies to recognize out-of-town same-sex marriages is troubling.

The majority of Americans support gay civil rights and domestic partnership but oppose same-sex marriage. Now in three states (Massachusetts, California, and New York), gay-rights laws and domestic partnership laws have been cited by the judicial or executive branches as a reason to impose gay marriage in states that repeatedly failed to redefine marriage through legislative means. The Human Rights Law Gov. Paterson says requires state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages only covers sexual orientation because of New York’s 2002 Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA).

But according to law professor Jay Weiser, a member of a gay law association, writing in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, “SONDA’s legislative history, however, specifically disclaimed any intent to affect the right to marry under New York law.” I could not find the text of SONDA anywhere, but according to New York Judge Doris Ling-Cohan’s pro-same-sex marriage ruling in Hernandez v. Robles, “the SONDA law states explicitly that it is not to be construed to require or prohibit marriage rights for same-sex couples.”

Gov. Paterson was the Democratic leader of the State Senate at the time of SONDA’s passage.

Given what has happened in state after state, could someone please give me a good reason why a person with the majority opinion toward gay issues should ever support non-discrimination laws or domestic partnerships? It seems to me that the only way to help gay and lesbian couples in distress but preserve the definition of marriage is to withdraw support for anything the gay community asks for until we can pass the Federal Marriage Amendment.