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The Appellate Division (the second-highest court in New York) has reaffirmed that New York state recognizes marriages, including same-sex marriages, performed elsewhere. In the specific case, the question was about benefits for an employees wife: the two women got married in Ontario. This is in line with a century of previous rulings, some of them affirming that other marriages that New York would not itself solemnize, were valid here if performed elsewhere.
This state is unlikely to prohibit such recognition, even though the majority leader of the state senate is, for now, blocking a vote on the same-sex marriage bill. The assembly passed it last year, and I expect would do so again, and Gov. Spitzer has said he will sign it if/when it reaches him.
State and New York City agencies had already been recognizing such marriages for the purposes of employee benefits--when Spitzer was attorney general, he made that policy, citing "full faith and credit"--but this goes further. A few New Yorker residents had marriages to same-sex partners recognized because they were legally married in Massachusetts, but that state is currently granting marriage licenses to same-sex pairs only if at least one is a Massachusetts resident. There's no such limitation on getting married in Canada, and Montreal and Ontario are right next door to us.
“The Legislature may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad,” a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ruled unanimously in rejecting a 2006 lower court decision. “Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York.”For more than a century, the court noted, New York State has recognized valid out-of-state marriages. Moreover, it said that the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest judicial body, has said the Legislature may enact laws recognizing same-sex marriages. “In our view, the Court of Appeals thereby indicated that the recognition of plaintiff’s marriage is not against the public policy of New York,” the court held.
This state is unlikely to prohibit such recognition, even though the majority leader of the state senate is, for now, blocking a vote on the same-sex marriage bill. The assembly passed it last year, and I expect would do so again, and Gov. Spitzer has said he will sign it if/when it reaches him.
State and New York City agencies had already been recognizing such marriages for the purposes of employee benefits--when Spitzer was attorney general, he made that policy, citing "full faith and credit"--but this goes further. A few New Yorker residents had marriages to same-sex partners recognized because they were legally married in Massachusetts, but that state is currently granting marriage licenses to same-sex pairs only if at least one is a Massachusetts resident. There's no such limitation on getting married in Canada, and Montreal and Ontario are right next door to us.
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