The New York Times yesterday reported...
Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada.
In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”
The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses.
In a videotaped message given to gay community leaders at a dinner on May 17, Mr. Paterson described the move as “a strong step toward marriage equality.” And people on both sides of the issue said it moved the state closer to fully legalizing same-sex unions in this state.
“Very shortly, there will be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and probably thousands and thousands and thousands of gay people who have their marriages recognized by the state,” said Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, a Democrat who represents the Upper West Side and has pushed for legalization of gay unions.
So even though no bill legislating gay marriage has made it through the legislature in NY so far, Paterson has managed to just skip the legislative process completely. Hot Air wonders about a possible push-back move against this tactic:
I wonder if some opponent won’t try to argue that because no New York state law has been passed formally granting full faith and credit to gay marriages, Paterson’s guilty of improperly/unilaterally “requiring” the state to recognize them and therefore in violation of DOMA. Seems like a stretch since DOMA’s really aimed at courts interpreting the federal constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause, but any weapon to hand, I guess.
Whatever the final outcome, this is just another example of the utter disdain that liberals have for democracy.
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