D.C. Mayor Signs Marriage Recognition Bill

Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty signed a bill Thursday that approves recognition of legally performed out-of-state gay marriages.

Fenty: "I think you can certainly anticipate that [gay marriage] is in the future of the District of Columbia. How soon, we don't know. But this is a huge step forward in being — having a law that recognizes marriages from other jurisdictions. And I do believe that nationally there's movement on this issue. Just in the past six to 12 months — you just announced Maine being the latest state to grant same-sex marriages. I think, just as marriage used to prohibit people from different races from being able to marry each other in this country, and that was done away with; I think prohibiting same-sex marriage will be done away with also in this country."

As The Advocate reported Wednesday, the battle over this measure now moves to the U.S. Congress, which has oversight over all of the District's legislation. After signing the bill, Mayor Fenty said he did not expect Congress to block it. "I'm going with Pelosi's statement that the Congress won't interfere," he told the local NBC affiliate.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a strong statement Tuesday against Congressional meddling in District matters. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today that Congress, which has 30 days to review District legislation and has the ability to block it, won't be touching this week's decision by the D.C. Council to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere “I have long believed that Congress should not interfere with internal decisions made by the District of Columbia’s elected representatives -- just as the Congress did not intervene in the state of New York’s recognition of valid marriage contracts in other jurisdictions,” Pelosi said.

And D.C.'s not-voting Congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton says: "I do not believe that a serious attempt to overturn the council bill will be made or will be successful," Norton said in a statement.