*NY recognizes Canadian same-sex marriages*

Kelly Patterson, Ottawa Citizen

In a landmark case, an American court has ruled that gay couples who tie
the knot in Canada can be treated as legally married in the state of New
York.

Justice Joan Lefkowitz of the New York Supreme Court ruled last week
that same-sex marriages performed outside the country are valid, even
though gay New Yorkers cannot be legally married in their home state.

This is the first time Canadian same-sex marriage laws have triumphed in
U.S. court, according to Alphonso David, a lawyer for the gay rights
group Lambda Legal, which intervened in the case.

“Couples can go to sleep at night without worrying about the security of
their status,” says David.

“I feel vindicated,” his client, Robert Voorheis, told reporters after
the March 12 ruling. “When I say, `I'm married,' I'm married.”

Voorheis and his partner, both of Yonkers, N.Y., were married in Niagara
Falls, Ont., four years ago.

“This is extremely important,” says Andrew Koppelman, a Northwestern
University law professor and expert on the issue.

If the ruling holds up on appeal, “it will mean for all practical
purposes, same-sex marriage is legal in the state of New York,” because
people can easily cross the border to get married, said Koppelman.

While the lower-court ruling is not technically binding on other state
courts, it's significant in that “it says you can recognize a (same-sex
marriage) even if locally you can't perform it,” and lays out historical
examples of that recognition, explains Mark Strasser, a law professor at
Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, who has written extensively on
same-sex marriage.

The case centred on a 2006 order by Westchester County Executive Andrew
Spano that county officials must recognize same-sex marriages from other
jurisdictions.

A conservative Arizona-based group called the Alliance Defense Fund took
Spano to court, arguing his order violated the state's constitution and
municipal laws.

Last summer, the New York Court of Appeal upheld the state's century-old
definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

But Lefkowitz found that ruling did not address the issue of marriages
performed outside the state.

She then applied the legal test of comity, the principle that countries
should recognize each other's laws on marriage and other such issues as
long as they don't offend community values or run strongly against
public policy. (Polygamy, for example, is accepted in some countries but
not in the U.S.).

She noted that, historically, New York has on many occasions recognized
foreign marriages that could not have been legally performed in the state.

She found there has been a sea change in attitudes toward gay marriage,
noting the “expanding recognition of rights accorded homosexuals,
lesbians and transsexuals.”

Both the state's attorney general and comptroller have publicly
supported the extension of spousal rights to same-sex partners, and
other court rulings and laws have recently granted gay couples
inheritance and adoption rights, she noted, concluding that same-sex
marriages do not offend community values.

“We're very disappointed in the ruling,” says Brian Raum, a lawyer for
the Alliance Defense Fund. He plans to appeal, noting other New York
courts have recently denied spousal status in two similar cases. Those
rulings are being appealed.

Court cases testing the validity of Canadian same-sex marriages are rare
in the U.S., where most states have Defense of Marriage Acts defining
marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and specifically
forbidding the recognition of out-of-state gay marriages.

New York is one of only four states with no such law on the books.

Only the state of Massachusetts allows gay marriage, although gays can
access some of the benefits of marriage through civil unions or
“domestic partnerships” in states such as California and Vermont.

None of these arrangements are recognized by the U.S. federal
government, which passed a Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.
© Ottawa Citizen 2007