Rochester Democrat & Chronicle: Gay marriages ruled valid in N.Y.
When Patricia Martinez and her newlywed spouse, Lisa Ann Golden, returned from Canada after their wedding in 2004, Martinez felt as if there was “a cloud over the marriage.”
The gay partners had wed in Canada but were returning to their home state, New York, which did not legally allow gay marriages.
On Friday, Martinez said, the cloud lifted. In a ruling hailed as historic by gay rights activists, an appellate court ruled Friday that New York must recognize same-sex marriages legally consecrated elsewhere.
This appears to be the first appellate ruling in the country mandating that a state must recognize the same-sex marriage of a couple legally wed elsewhere, according to officials with the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“Today I know the legal world looks at my marriage as valid, as something we’re not going to sweep under the rug, as something that doesn’t end,” said Martinez, a Chili resident who filed suit in 2005 to try to get her marriage legally blessed in New York. “Because we’re not going to go away.”
Martinez, a word-processing supervisor at Monroe Community College, sued the college in 2005 after it refused to extend health care benefits to her spouse. Her lawyer, Jeffrey Wicks of Rochester, argued that the couple was the victim of discrimination because the MCC benefits were allowed to heterosexual married couples.
At that time, the college’s contract with the Civil Service Employees Union did not recognize domestic partnerships. The MCC contract with CSEA now does.
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