Big Day For Same-Sex Marriage

Call For Impeachment Of Iowa Gay Marriage Judge

A Republican who mounted a failed US Senate bid in 2002 is back and has formed a citizens group calling for the impeachment of a district court judge whose ruling overturned Iowa's ban on gay marriage. Bill Salier and his organization, Everyday America, say that Polk County Judge Robert Hanson violated the state constitution in his ruling last month.

In a statement the group says that Iowans must stop officials from overstepping the constitution to change society as they see fit. It is doubtful the initiative will get very far. Only the Legislature can impeach a judge, and in Iowa the Legislature is controlled by Democrats.

On August 30 Hanson ruled that a state law allowing marriage only between a man and woman violated the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection. Less than two hours after the the ruling two Des Moines men applied for a marriage license, found a judge to waive the waiting period and were married. Hanson then stayed his ruling until the state could appeal it to the Iowa Supreme Court. The marriage of Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan remains the only legal same-sex marriage in the state.


Court Rules NYS Gay Married Benefits Legal

An Albany court has dismissed a challenge to a decision by New York State's Comptroller that treats out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples the same as any other legal marriage in terms of benefits afforded to state employees through the New York State Retirement System.

In 2004 in response to an inquiry by a gay state employee wanting to know if his retirement benefits would cover his family if he went to Canada to legally marry his partner, New York State Comptroller at the time, Alan Hevesi, stated that, “Based on current law, the retirement system will recognize a same-sex Canadian marriage in the same manner as an opposite-sex New York marriage under the principle of comity. That principle has been legal practice pursuant to New York Court of Appeals rulings for many years.”

Hevesi’s interpretation of the law matched that of then Attorney General, now Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who also said that, under the state’s current laws, same-sex couples who legally married in other jurisdictions should be treated as any other married couple in New York State.

The Alliance Defend Fund, an Arizona- based organization that regularly fights LGBT issues, filed the suit, citing the July 2006 ruling by the Court of Appeals - the state's highest court - that upheld New York's ban on same-sex marriage.

In dismissing the suit judge Thomas J. McNamara said that case did not apply to the question raised by the ADF since the issue before the Court of Appeals had only addressed whether same-sex couples could marry in the state, not whether marriages performed outside of New York State should be considered legal here.

The policy of the Comptroller to recognize same-sex Canadian marriages in the same manner as opposite-sex New York marriages…is legal and not contrary to law,” McNamara said in his written ruling.

“This ruling is further proof that public and private entities in New York State need to respect the legal out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples in exactly the same way they respect any other marriage,” said Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle.

The issue that Hevesi addressed for the purpose of retirement benefits involved only same-sex marriages from Canada. Following today's ruling by Judge McNamara, Hevesi's successor, Thomas P. DiNapoli announced that the retirement system would be recognizing all legal out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples and not just those from Canada. This will include same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts, Spain, Netherlands, South Africa and Belgium.


Canadian Same-Sex Marriages Growing At 5 Times Rate Of Opposite-Sex Unions

Same-sex unions are growing at five times the rate of opposite-sex ones according to census numbers that also reveal, for the first time, the number of gay marriages in Canada.

Some 45,300 couples, both common law and married, reported as same-sex in the 2006 census, up from 34,200. Those numbers represent a 33 per cent surge since 2001, while heterosexual couples grew by just six per cent in the same time period.

The historic Statistics Canada query on same-sex marriage, coming in the wake of Parliament legalizing such unions in 2005, revealed 7,465 gay and lesbian marriages.

That's considerably lower than numbers reported by the now-defunct advocacy group Canadians For Equal Marriage. The group, based on its own research of municipal records, reported last November that 12,438 marriage licenses had been granted to same-sex couples since provincial courts began recognizing such unions in 2003.

Ontario became the first province to legally recognize same-sex marriage following a 2003 decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal. Similar decisions followed in British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, and New Brunswick.

On July 20, 2005, Canada became the third country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, after the Netherlands and Belgium. Spain and South Africa have since legalized gay marriage as well.