Lambda Legal Files Historic Lawsuit Seeking Full Marriage for Gay Couples in New York

(New York, Friday, March 5, 2004) -- Lambda Legal is filing a historic lawsuit in Manhattan today seeking the right to marry for same-sex couples statewide.

The case, on behalf of a gay couple who have been together for over five years, argues that denying marriage to same-sex couples violates the state Constitution’s guarantee of equality for all New Yorkers. The case is the first of its kind to be filed in New York since the Massachusetts high court ruled that same-sex couples are entitled to full marriage under that state’s Constitution.

“This is the whole enchilada. We seek, and intend to win, full marriage for lesbian and gay couples across New York - nothing more and nothing less,” said Kevin Cathcart, Executive Director of Lambda Legal. “The protections only marriage provides are uniquely important to gay New Yorkers; these couples have waited long enough. Today’s lawsuit is the beginning of the end of marriage discrimination in New York.”

The lawsuit, filed in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, comes two days after the state’s Attorney General said that state laws referring to “husband” and “wife” should prohibit local officials from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples -- but he added that those laws raise serious constitutional questions because they exclude gay couples.

“New York’s courts have a track record of making sure lesbian and gay people are included in the state Constitution’s requirement that everyone be treated equally under the law,” said Susan Sommer, Supervising Attorney at Lambda Legal and lead attorney on the case. “This lawsuit is the next natural development in a line of cases that have upheld gay couples’ fundamental right to be treated with respect by their government. When gay couples cannot marry, they are not treated equally, and we believe New York courts will see that,” said Sommer, who was one of the lead attorneys on Lambda Legal’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down anti-gay sodomy laws last year.

“Today we are both excited and deeply moved as we take a critical step toward what we have wanted for so long -- to get married. We’re lucky to both have parents who’ve been happily married for more than 50 years. Is it too much to want that for ourselves? When our parents got married, nobody had to ask why -- the reason was obvious. Our reason today is just as simple and as clear as our parents’ was half a century ago -- we love each other,” said Daniel Hernandez (46) and Nevin Cohen (42), Lambda Legal’s plaintiffs in the case.

According the U.S. Census in 2000, New York City has the largest percentage of same-sex households of any city any of the country, with 8.9% of the country’s households where gay couples live together; statewide, the 2000 Census counted 46,490 same-sex couples throughout New York State. City and state law provides minimal protections and rights to same-sex couples. “There is no way to treat same-sex couples equally without allowing them to marry,” Cathcart said. “As the Massachusetts high court recently said, anything else is separate and separate is not equal.”

Other than Massachusetts (which is set to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples this spring) no state allows same-sex couples to marry. Last summer, Canada began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, and recently San Francisco, Portland, New Paltz and (briefly) Sandoval County, New Mexico, have followed suit. Thirty-eight states explicitly ban same-sex couples from marrying or have laws refusing to respect marriages from other states. New York is not among those states. An amendment to the federal Constitution that has been proposed and introduced in Congress would ban marriage between same-sex couples and could also block other protections for couples. That amendment has ignited controversy even among some conservatives because of its breadth and because of the extreme nature of amending the nation’s founding document.

Lambda Legal is currently litigating marriage cases in New Jersey and (along with the ACLU, National Center for Lesbian Rights and Equality California) San Francisco. This week, Lambda Legal launched an unprecedented national campaign challenging distortions and inaccurate rhetoric that so-called “activist judges” are behind recent gay-rights victories (details on that campaign are at www.LambdaLegal.org/JudgingDiscrimination).

Sommer is Lambda Legal’s lead attorney on the case, Hernandez v. Robles. Jeffrey S. Trachtman and Norman C. Simon of the New York City law firm, Kramer Levin, are co-counsel on the case.