The Marriage Law Project at The Catholic University of America

TOP6NEWS - September 3, 2004

1-NEWS: LA amendment on the ballot

2-NEWS: MI Appeals Court puts m amendment on ballot

3-NEWS: SF continuing search for ssm, file briefs

4-NEWS: TX gay man wants inheritance rights

5-NEWS: WA DOMA in court yesterday

6-OP-ED: C. Crain: A tale of two parties

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1-NEWS: LA amendment on the ballot

Court clears the way for gay marriage vote
Friday, September 03, 2004
By Susan Finch
Times Picayune Staff writer
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-2/109419100277400.xml
The Louisiana Supreme Court unanimously refused to consider a gay rights group's challenges of a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the measure to go before voters Sept. 18.

Justices said the Forum for Equality's three challenges were either filed prematurely or not filed in time, or simply gave no reason for the denial. The group claims the amendment would not only ban same-sex marriage but also invalidate domestic partnerships and other legal agreements entered into by same-sex couples and unmarried heterosexual couples.

Chief Justice Pascal Calogero offered some hope for the amendment's opponents in a concurring opinion.
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2-NEWS: MI Appeals Court puts m amendment on ballot

Detroit Free Press, MI, September 3, 2004
http://www.freep.com/news/latestnews/pm59_20040903.htm
Court puts gay marriage ban, Nader on Michigan ballot
BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF, FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU CHIEF
LANSING - The re-election campaign of President George W. Bush got two pieces of good news Friday from the Michigan Court of Appeals: the state’s Nov. 2 presidential ballot will carry the name of Ralph Nader as an independent candidate for president and a proposal for a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

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The appeals court ruled that the state Board of Canvassers had overstepped its authority last week in blocking the ballot issues from the November ballot.

The Board of Canvassers deadlocked 2-2 along partisan lines over whether to certify the petitions. Of the 50,500 signatures submitted on Nader’s behalf, more than 45,000 were collected by the Michigan Republican Party.

Only 30,000 valid signatures were required.
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Meanwhile, a group called Citizens for Protection of Marriage had filed 412,243 signatures, far more than the required number to place the gay marriage ban on the ballot. The appeals court ruled today that members of the Board of Canvassers had no legal authority to object that the ballot proposal did not state that it could also ban domestic partnerships between a man and woman or civil unions between gays.

Democrats have said that the gay marriage petition drive was engineered by Republicans to help Bush.
Rather, the Board can only determine whether ballot language meets strict guidelines, the court ruled.
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3-NEWS: SF continuing search for ssm, file briefs

Brief at:
http://www.nclrights.org/cases/pdf/Marriage_Case_Brief_090204.pdf
http://www.nclrights.org/cases/pdf/woo_chung_complaint.pdf

S.F., gays argue for 'marriage equality' Court briefs charge state ban based on 'archaic stereotypes'

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/09/03/MNGL98JA9S1.DTL
A dozen gay and lesbian couples and the city of San Francisco launched a legal attack on California's ban on same-sex marriage Thursday, arguing that the law enshrines bigotry, discriminates arbitrarily and violates a constitutional right to marry one's chosen partner.

"Exclusion from marriage ... marks lesbian and gay couples as second- class citizens. It dashes their hopes and dreams, and labels them and their children as inferior, based only on archaic stereotypes,'' lawyers for the couples said in written arguments in San Francisco Superior Court.

"The time for marriage equality has arrived,'' declared lawyers from City Attorney Dennis Herrera's office, which is suing on the city's behalf to overturn the marriage law.

The briefs opened what is likely to be the decisive round in the court battle over the law that defines marriage as a union strictly between a man and a woman. The law was passed by the California Legislature in 1977 and reaffirmed in 2000 by voters' approval of Proposition 22.

Three weeks ago, the state Supreme Court invalidated nearly 4,000 same- sex weddings performed at San Francisco City Hall between Feb. 12 and March 11 and ruled that Mayor Gavin Newsom had exceeded his authority when he ordered issuance of the marriage licenses. The court expressly declined to address the constitutionality of the marriage law, however, and said that could be resolved in cases working their way through the lower courts.

The law already had been challenged in suits filed by the city and same- sex couples in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Those cases, and suits by supporters of the current ban, have been assigned to San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer, who will consider them in a single proceeding. Kramer is to set a timetable for the cases at a hearing next Wednesday.

Among the 12 couples in Thursday's filing were Jeanne Rizzo and Pali Cooper, partners for 15 years, who were scheduled to be married at City Hall on the March day that the state Supreme Court halted the weddings while preparing to decide their legality. Rizzo's son, Christopher Bradshaw, 24, submitted a court declaration in support of the case.

"There is no justification for denying them -- or me -- the equal respect for our family that is denied to us because committed same-sex partners are denied the opportunity to marry,'' he said.

Another couple, Janet Wallace and Deborah Hart, partners for nearly 15 years, said the need for legal marriage was brought home by their parents' continued refusal to recognize the private wedding ceremony they held in 1992.

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4-NEWS: TX gay man wants inheritance rights

Associated Press, September 2, 2004 http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/090204_APlocal_gay.html
Gay man asks court for spousal rights in late partner's estate

(HOUSTON) — A gay man is asking a Harris County court to let him claim a portion of his partner's estate, just as a heterosexual spouse could.

But attorneys for the partner's son say Texas law does not recognize a probate claim brought by a gay partner. All the proceeds, they say, belong to the man's children.

William Ross says he and John Green, who died in January 2003, were partners for 7½ years.
Green, 55, left no will saying who should get his town house, another home under renovation in the Houston suburb of Katy and stock worth $88,000.

But Ross claims Green made out a notarized deed about a month before he died, leaving him the Katy home.
Ross said Green told him to file the deed after he died, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday.
"Just simple fairness would say that he would get something," said Ross' lawyer, Jerry Simoneaux.
But John Geddie, a lawyer for Green's son, Scott Goldstein, said in court papers that Green was ill and lacked the mental capacity to sign the deed.

Goldstein, 26, a South Florida businessman, sued Ross, alleging he had unlawfully laid claim to the Katy home, spent money that belonged to the estate and kept a 1996 Mustang.

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5-NEWS: WA DOMA in court yesterday

Another story gives more of the court arguments, but this is a better story. So, if you would like the other, let me know.

State's marriage law back in court
Thurston Co. judge is being asked to strike down gay ban
By TRACY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/189225_gay03.html
OLYMPIA -- Same-sex couples are now hoping a Thurston County judge will strike down a state law that bars them from getting married, a move that would give them a second victory to take to the state Supreme Court.

But a state attorney argued yesterday that gay and lesbian couples, even if they are given the same legal benefits of married people, don't have a constitutional right to call their relationships marriages.

Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks plans to decide next week, possibly as soon as Tuesday, whether Washington's 1998 ban on same-sex marriages is constitutional.

Eleven same-sex couples are suing the state in this second challenge. The first was decided last month in King County, where a judge struck down the state's Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as involving a man and woman.

Regardless of what Hicks decides, both cases likely will be joined for the state Supreme Court to consider.
Yesterday's case also raises the question of whether Washington should recognize the marriages of couples wed in Canada or Oregon, which briefly allowed same-sex marriages earlier this year.

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In court, Judge Hicks peppered the attorneys with questions, and a few left some of the same-sex couples optimistic. In one, he noted that a 1974 state Court of Appeals decision -- which found that prohibiting same-sex marriage is not a violation of equal rights -- has never been overruled but has "been highly criticized for a number of reasons."

And when Collins argued that a 1967 case overturning a ban on interracial marriage came at a time when states were becoming more accepting of such marriages, the judge asked, "Isn't that what we're seeing here?"

Collins agreed there has become "more tolerance in society" toward same-sex relationships over the years but argued that marriage is a different issue. In court documents, he noted that more than 30 states have decided not to recognize same-sex marriages since 1995.

Hicks also expressed concern that calling marriage a fundamental right -- as the plaintiffs urged, and as King County Judge William Downing did -- would raise new questions. Could people choose to marry several people in accordance with their religion? Would children be able to claim they have the right to wed?

In writing, an attorney for 22 Republican state lawmakers also urged the judge to uphold the state's one-man, one-woman definition of marriage. Attorney Steve O'Ban noted that the Defense of Marriage Act was passed over Gov. Gary Locke's veto with "overwhelming bipartisan support."

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6-OP-ED: C. Crain: A tale of two parties

A tale of two parties
Gay issues are of central importance to both Republicans and Democrats alike. So why won’t either party engage the public on them?

By Chris Crain, WashBlade
Friday, September 03, 2004
http://www.washingtonblade.com/2004/9-3/view/editorial/central.cfm
MUCH HAS BEEN made of the “extreme makeover” both major political parties used at their conventions to appear more moderate to swing voters.

The speakers at the podium of the Madison Square Garden at this week’s Republican National Convention have hardly been representative of the party’s conservative caucus in Congress, not to mention its incumbent president.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who gave a wildly popular Monday night speech, is generally supportive of gay rights and even moved in with a gay couple during his final months in office, after separating from his wife.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor turned California governor, has also been fairly friendly to gay rights, even commenting during the midst of the gay marriage row that he saw no good reason why same-sex couples shouldn’t wed.

But neither of the GOP’s rising “moderate” stars even mentioned gay issues during their prime-time addresses. In fact, no one in prime time did, at least as this paper went to press on Wednesday night.

THE REPUBLICANS’ NEW platform, on other hand, speaks volumes about their outright hostility to our equality, even if the party’s prime-time speakers did not.

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BUT BEFORE WE charge the GOP with hypocrisy for so vigorously opposing equality for gays while hiding those true colors from the convention stage, remember that the Democrats pulled the same trick, albeit from the other end of the political spectrum.

The Democratic Party platform backs workplace rights and hate crime protection and opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment. The party’s nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, has come out in favor of civil unions accompanied by the same federal benefits married couples enjoy.

But almost all the other speakers at the Democratic National Convention scrupulously avoided mentioning gay issues, reportedly at the direction of the Kerry campaign itself. Kerry and the other prime-time speakers, especially, steered clear of the “G word” and our issues.

The double message here could not be clearer: On the one hand, both parties view gay issues as critical to their core supporters. You can accuse either party of cynicism or accept their positions on gay rights as genuinely held, but either way, our issues are of central importance to Republicans and Democrats alike, as never before.

So if gay issues are so important, why won’t they engage the general public on them? Because both parties fear the risks outweigh the benefits.

Republicans know that vocally opposing equality for gays, even on marriage, risks appearing mean-spirited, like the “culture war” speeches by Pat Buchanan and William Bennett at the 1992 GOP convention.

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AT SOME POINT, one side of THE Culture War will successfully engage the general public on our issues. That’s where the gay rights movement ought to come into play.

Conservative groups have aggressively pressured the GOP not to remain quiet on gay issues. That’s the only reason why President Bush endorsed the FMA to begin with, and that’s why the Senate voted on it and the House passed the Marriage Protection Act.

Gay rights groups, meanwhile, have taken their marching orders directly from the Democratic National Committee and the Kerry/Edwards campaign, giving the party a “pass” on marriage equality and over-investing resources on the presidential race.

Of course there’s no question that the Democrats are far superior to the Republicans on gay issues, and that John Kerry and George W. Bush are almost as far apart on gay rights as possible.

But our movement must focus on persuading fair-minded moderates from both parties, along with independents. And we should be pressuring the Democrats to do the same because otherwise they clearly won’t.

Everything about John Kerry’s background suggests that as a candidate and as a president he will do only what is absolutely necessary politically, which means that pressure from our movement and our people will ultimately decide the gains that might be achieved under a Kerry administration.

It is long past time for the gay rights movement to put aside the focus groups and regain the courage of its convictions. The arguments for our equality are compelling and straightforward. American history shows how well the people respond when engaged; rapidly growing acceptance of our relationships only underscores that point.

If only we could find our voice.