Mayor charged for marrying gay couples

[oh21]

NEW PALTZ, New York (AP) -- The village's mayor was charged Tuesday with 19 criminal counts for performing marriage ceremonies for gay couples.

Jason West was charged with solemnizing marriages without a license, a misdemeanor under the domestic relations law, according to Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams.

Although West could face a maximum penalty of a year in jail, Williams said a jail term wasn't being contemplated at this point.

West performed wedding ceremonies for 25 gay couples Friday, making him the second mayor in the country to perform same-sex marriages. More than 3,400 couples have been married in San Francisco, California.

West has insisted his actions were legal.

Williams said he believed West was served with a summons by New Paltz police that would require him to report to town court.

Williams said the misdemeanor charges do not hinge on whether gay marriage is legal in New York, only that the weddings were performed for people without marriage licenses.

West did not immediately return calls Tuesday.

State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said he will decide this week whether New York law allows gay marriage.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/03/02/new.paltz.mayor.ap/index.html

 

[ExistentialLuv]

He was on Today this Morning



Good interview with Katie

 

[Pookie]

ACLU Asks New York Court to Let Marriages Continue

March 5, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KINGSTON, NY -- The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union today asked the Supreme Court in Kingston, New York to allow them to join a lawsuit in support of Jason West, the Mayor of New Paltz. The lawsuit, filed by a conservative group from Clearwater, Florida, charges that West violated New York law when he married 25 couples last week.

“The plain fact is that the New York law that says who can get married has no requirement that the two people be a man and a woman,” said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “And the part of the law that says who cannot get married does not mention same-sex couples.” Lieberman said Attorney General Elliot Spitzer’s belief that a “man-woman” requirement might be read into the law was “strained.”

The ACLU said that Mayor West is correct in his belief that New York’s law does not require that two people be opposite sex to be married, and that if it did that, it would violate New York’s Constitution. Therefore, the ACLU said that it would be illegal to prevent same-sex couples from marrying.

The ACLU is representing two couples hoping to be married in New Paltz. Alice J. Muniz, 31 and Oneida Garcia, 34, have been together four years. Ms. Muniz is a New York City Police Officer. The couple lives in Brooklyn with their two children.

Amy Tripi, 37 and Jeanne Vitale, 41, are scheduled to be wed on Saturday. The couple has been together seven years, and Amy is pregnant with their first child. They live in Highland New York, just outside of New Paltz. Explaining why they want to marry, Jeanne said, “It’s like standing up and saying to the world that our love is real and valid and true and a gift from God and I am prouder of my relationship with Amy than I am of anything else in my whole life.”

“These couples are committed,” said James Esseks, Litigation Director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, “They live together, they raise kids together, they have all the worries and all the great moments of people who make a life together. All they want is to have the law protect that life the way it does for everyone else. That is what the Constitution’s promise of equality is all about.”

In addition the ACLU and NYCLU, the couples are also represented by Roberta Kaplan of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

Source: http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=15181&c=101