The Marriage Law Project at The Catholic University of America

TOP6NEWS - October 12, 2004

1-NEWS: EU rejects Italian because he believes homosexuality a sin

2-NEWS: UK resort gives in to pressure admit gay couples

3-NEWS: LA Appeals Court will hear m amendment challenge

4-NEWS: CA AG says law can prohibit ssm

5-NEWS: 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' challenged

6-OP-ED: 1st American gay couple marries in Belgium

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1-NEWS: EU rejects Italian because he believes homosexuality a sin

MEPs: 'Homophobic' justice chief must quit
By Stephen Castle in Luxembourg for the Independent
12 October 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=571211
Italy's European commissioner-designate, Rocco Buttiglione, faced a formal call from MEPs for his resignation yesterday over his description of homosexuality as a "sin".

In what looked destined to become a trial of strength with the new European Commission president, MEPs on a key committee voted to reject Mr Buttiglione from the post of justice and home affairs commissioner which he is due to take up on 1 November.

The parliament does not have the power to sack an individual commissioner but it can reject the entire team.
However, the vote of the Freedom, Security and Justice Committee against Mr Buttiglione is an embarrassment to the new Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso.

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The furore arose after a confirmation hearing in the European Parliament last week in which Mr Buttiglione, who is a close friend of Pope John Paul II, said: "I may think that homosexuality is a sin; this has no effect on politics unless I say that homosexuality is a crime." He added: "The rights of homosexuals should be defended on the same basis as the rights of all other European citizens. I would not accept the idea that homosexuals are a category apart." At the same event he defended the traditional heterosexual marriage with men in the role of protector of women.

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2-NEWS: UK resort gives in to pressure admit gay couples

Holiday firm ends ban on gay couples
David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Tuesday October 12, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1325023,00.html
A holiday company which turned away gay couples from its resorts unexpectedly lifted the ban last night in the face of a campaign by an ex-government minister and sexual equality groups.

Sandals, the Caribbean resort company, announced it was lifting its ban on same-sex couples from 13 resorts, just before a spokesman was due to appear to defend its policy with the former minister, Barbara Roche, on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning. The company has resorts in Jamaica, St Lucia, Antigua and Bahamas.

Sandals was under commercial pressure from London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, who had banned its advertisements from the tube because of its homophobic attitude to clients. Mr Livingstone was seeking to extend the ban to London's taxis.

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3-NEWS: LA Appeals Court will hear m amendment challenge

Appeal court to hear gay marriage dispute
Ban making its way to state's top court
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
By Ed Anderson
NO Times-Picayune Capital bureau
http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1097564114228500.xml?nola
BATON ROUGE -- A Baton Rouge appellate court, not the state Supreme Court, will have the next crack at deciding the battle over the legitimacy of a controversial constitutional amendment defining marriage as an institution only between one man and one woman and banning same-sex marriages and other civil unions.

Attorneys in the case had asked the Supreme Court to hear the matter next, bypassing the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge, but Supreme Court spokeswoman Valerie Willard said the high court decided to allow the normal appellate process to be followed.

No matter how the 1st Circuit rules, both sides in the ongoing controversy said the case will eventually wind up in the state's highest court, possibly by late this week or early next week.

A five-judge panel of the appellate court will hear oral arguments at 10 a.m. Wednesday, 1st Circuit Clerk Christine Crow said. The five judges are 1st Circuit Chief Judge Burrell Carter of Greensburg; Vanessa Guidry-Whipple, John Pettigrew and Edward "Jimmy" Gaidry, all of Houma; and Mike McDonald of Baton Rouge.

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4-NEWS: CA AG says law can prohibit ssm

Brief
http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/2004/04-115.pdf
State Argues on the Right to Marry
Lockyer defends laws upholding 'traditional understanding of marriage' while dismissing criticisms of same-sex unions.
By Lee Romney, LA Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gay9oct09,1,1041647.story
SAN FRANCISCO — The state attorney general filed a legal brief Friday defending California's marriage laws, arguing that although committed relationships, gay or straight, "form the cornerstone of nurturing families and a stable society," voters and legislators have reserved marriage for heterosexuals for more than a century.

That "common and traditional understanding of marriage" should be upheld unless voters or lawmakers alter it, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer argued in response to cases challenging the constitutionality of California's marriage laws.

Heading to High Court
The matter, coordinated before a San Francisco County Superior Court judge, is expected to reach the California Supreme Court within two years.

Though gay-marriage opponents in other states have attacked same-sex relationships as unstable and harmful to children, Lockyer dismissed those arguments as inconsistent with California's efforts to extend rights to gay and lesbian couples.

Instead, the brief stated that California's generous domestic partner benefit law — which takes full effect in January — is evidence that "California is dedicated to providing equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples."

The "understanding of marriage as between a man and a woman has long historical roots, and it is legitimate for California to respect this understanding as it extends virtually the same rights and benefits to same-sex couples," the state argued.

The California Supreme Court last month ruled that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had no legal right to order his county clerk in February to issue same-sex marriage licenses — ultimately granted to more than 4,000 couples.

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5-NEWS: 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' challenged

Pro-gay Republican group to file suit
By Genaro C. Armas, Associated Press Writer | October 12, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/10/12/pro_gay_republican_group_to_file_suit/
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Gays-Military-Lawsuit.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/10/12/state1413EDT0050.DTL
WASHINGTON -- A pro-gay Republican group plans to file a lawsuit asking a federal court to overturn the U.S. government's "don't ask, don't tell" policy covering gays in the military.

Log Cabin Republican leaders said the suit would be filed Tuesday in federal district court in Los Angeles. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy, put into place in 1993 during the Clinton administration, allows gays and lesbians to serve so long as they do not disclose their sexual orientation and do not engage in homosexual acts.

Log Cabin members serving in the military asked the group's leaders over the last four months to take legal action, the group's attorney, Marty Meekins, said Tuesday. They did not come forward because of a specific incident, but simply because "of fear of the military finding out their sexual orientation if they are gay and lesbian," Meekins said.

"This case is fundamentally about correcting a misguided governmental policy based on prejudice toward gay and lesbian Americans," he added.

While it's not the first challenge of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, Log Cabin officials say they are encouraged by a historic Supreme Court decision in 2003 that struck down a Texas law that made homosexual sex a crime.

The court, in the ruling, said that what gay men and women do in the privacy of their bedrooms is their business and not the domain of government.

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6-OP-ED: 1st American gay couple marries in Belgium

Gay Americans Marry In Belgium
by Rex Wockner
365Gay.com Editor-At-Large
Posted: October 11, 2004 5:01 pm ET
http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/10/1011045belgWed.htm
Two American men who work in Belgium have become the first U.S. same-sex couple to be married in that country.
The wedding took pace Oct. 9, in the city of Enghien.
Phillip Sorensen, 46, and Christopher Staker, 49, both of whom work for NATO in Brussels, tied the knot in the City Hall civil-weddings room before local friends and 37 other friends and family members from around the world, including 25 who came from the U.S. for the event.

An Oct. 1 law change made it possible for any foreign same-sex couple to marry in Belgium if at least one of the spouses has lived there for at least three months. Previously, foreign same-sex couples could marry in Belgium only if their home country or countries also allowed same-sex marriage.

Sorensen and Staker are from New Hampshire. The only U.S. state that allows same-sex couples to marry is Massachusetts.

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