Lost Cause
It's a wrap!
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2001
- Posts
- 30,949
What do you think of the state judging your relationship with someone they don't approve of? Do you think two people that work and pay taxes and live together, are any different from the puritan definition of a marriage? Do you think benefits should be extended to males/females living together, instead of being exclusively a gay issue?
HARRISBURG - A state appeals court has struck down a landmark Philadelphia ordinance that recognized same-sex relationships as "life partnerships" and allowed members of the gay community to receive benefits once reserved only for married couples.
In a unanimous decision, Commonwealth Court ruled yesterday that the four-year-old ordinance, signed by former Mayor Ed Rendell, circumvented the state's power to define marriage.
"The city was without authority to legislate in the field of domestic relations by defining and creating a new marital status, and Common Pleas erred in deciding otherwise," said Senior Judge Joseph Doyle, who wrote the 25-page majority opinion. "The city's creation of 'life partnerships' constituted an exercise of power both contrary to and in enlargement of powers granted by acts of the General Assembly that are applicable throughout the commonwealth."
Philadelphia officials amended the definition of "marital status" to include "life partners" in 1998.
The change was the result of a long, hard-fought lobbying effort by Philadelphia's lesbian and gay community. By approving a trio of bills, City Council granted health and pension benefits to gay partners of city employees and exempted same-sex couples from paying the city's 3 percent real-estate-transfer tax when transferring properties to each other.
"This is a huge victory for marriage," said William Devlin, the lead plaintiff and a vice president of the Urban Family Council, which promotes marriage, abstinence education and fatherhood. The decision will have national ramifications because "it's the first victory of this sort," Devlin said.
The ordinance "wasn't about giving people benefits. It was a cultural affirmation of homosexual marriage," he said. "This said that the family is anyone who ever appeared together on Jerry Springer." He said his group's goal was "not to go back to some Paleozoic Era of marriage but about the future. To us, this suit was not homosexual bashing but filed to strengthen the family."
But Stacey Sobel, executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, said that the Commonwealth Court misunderstood the intent of the law.
"It's absurd for the court to say that Philadelphia was trying to replicate marriage," Sobel said. "The city was merely trying to extend benefits to city employees and residents, to be fair."
In the opinion, Doyle writes that Philadelphia's ordinance is "directly contrary" to the definition of marriage under Pennsylvania law, which calls it a union between a man and a woman.
HARRISBURG - A state appeals court has struck down a landmark Philadelphia ordinance that recognized same-sex relationships as "life partnerships" and allowed members of the gay community to receive benefits once reserved only for married couples.
In a unanimous decision, Commonwealth Court ruled yesterday that the four-year-old ordinance, signed by former Mayor Ed Rendell, circumvented the state's power to define marriage.
"The city was without authority to legislate in the field of domestic relations by defining and creating a new marital status, and Common Pleas erred in deciding otherwise," said Senior Judge Joseph Doyle, who wrote the 25-page majority opinion. "The city's creation of 'life partnerships' constituted an exercise of power both contrary to and in enlargement of powers granted by acts of the General Assembly that are applicable throughout the commonwealth."
Philadelphia officials amended the definition of "marital status" to include "life partners" in 1998.
The change was the result of a long, hard-fought lobbying effort by Philadelphia's lesbian and gay community. By approving a trio of bills, City Council granted health and pension benefits to gay partners of city employees and exempted same-sex couples from paying the city's 3 percent real-estate-transfer tax when transferring properties to each other.
"This is a huge victory for marriage," said William Devlin, the lead plaintiff and a vice president of the Urban Family Council, which promotes marriage, abstinence education and fatherhood. The decision will have national ramifications because "it's the first victory of this sort," Devlin said.
The ordinance "wasn't about giving people benefits. It was a cultural affirmation of homosexual marriage," he said. "This said that the family is anyone who ever appeared together on Jerry Springer." He said his group's goal was "not to go back to some Paleozoic Era of marriage but about the future. To us, this suit was not homosexual bashing but filed to strengthen the family."
But Stacey Sobel, executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, said that the Commonwealth Court misunderstood the intent of the law.
"It's absurd for the court to say that Philadelphia was trying to replicate marriage," Sobel said. "The city was merely trying to extend benefits to city employees and residents, to be fair."
In the opinion, Doyle writes that Philadelphia's ordinance is "directly contrary" to the definition of marriage under Pennsylvania law, which calls it a union between a man and a woman.
