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| D.C. Council member David Catania is widely expected to introduce a full marriage rights bill this fall. (AP photo) | |
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By LOU CHIBBARO JR, Washington Blade
Jul 7 2009, 9:42 AM |
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Same-sex marriages performed in other states and countries became legal in the District of Columbia at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, when Congress completed its 30 legislative day review of a marriage recognition law passed by the D.C. City Council in May.
Gay activists hailed the development as an historic landmark for same-sex couples throughout the country and noted that it opens the way for the Council to pass a separate law later this year allowing same-sex marriages to be performed in the District.
“I think there’s tremendous significance and opportunity in Americans seeing legally married gay couples treated with respect in our nation’s capital,” said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom To Marry, a national same-sex marriage advocacy group.
The measure that took effect Tuesday, the Jury and Marriage Amendment Act of 2009, immediately provides the city’s same-sex couples married in other jurisdictions with more than 200 rights, benefits, and obligations associated with marriage under D.C. law.
Similar to six other U.S. states that have legalized same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian married couples in D.C. won’t be able to receive any of the more than 1,100 federal rights and benefits that come with marriage.
Federal marital rights and benefits are denied to same-sex couples under the 1996 U.S. Defense of Marriage Act.
D.C. research consultant Jeff Krehely, 32, who married local attorney Trevor Blake, 31, in Massachusetts in July 2006, said the city’s marriage recognition law took effect as he and Blake prepare to celebrate their third wedding anniversary on July 31. The two live in the city’s U Street, N.W., corridor, which has become a popular neighborhood for gays.
“We’re really happy about our place that we call home is recognizing our relationship,” he said. “We think it’s a great step for the District to be taking.”
The city’s sweeping domestic partnership law provides nearly all of the D.C. rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex and opposite sex domestic partners who register their relationship with the city.
But many activists consider domestic partnerships and civil unions — another form of legal recognition for same-sex couples — to be a “separate and unequal” status that denies full equality for same-sex couples that activists say can only come with the right to marry.
Spokespersons for D.C. Council members Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large), the lead sponsor of the same-sex marriage recognition law, and Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), a longtime advocate of same-sex marriage, said no implementing rules would be needed for the city to carry out the marriage recognition law.
A spokesperson for Mayor Adrian Fenty, who signed the law one day after the Council approved it on May 5 by a vote of 12-1, could not be immediately reached for comment.
City Hall sources said D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles was preparing a memorandum for the heads of city departments and agencies reminding them that the law went into effect Tuesday and that they should be prepared to provide same-sex couples with all the rights and benefits of marriage that have long gone to heterosexual married couples.
“This is a change and we need to make sure that people in the bureaucracy understand it,” said Rick Rosendall, vice president of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance.
“And it’s not just in government,” he said. “If your spouse is in the hospital or in some other way the issue comes up, you want to make sure the fact that you’re married is understood and respected without having to produce a
copy of the law.”
The law took effect one week after a D.C. Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Maryland minister and six supporters seeking to put the law on hold until they completed requirements to overturn the measure through a voter referendum.
Judge Judith Retchin, in a 15-page decision, upheld an earlier ruling by the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics that a referendum seeking to block the same-sex marriage recognition measure would violate the city’s Human Rights Act. The election board and Retchin each ruled that the referendum could not be held because it would violate the human rights law’s provision banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Bishop Harry Jackson Jr., pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., vowed to continue his efforts to oppose same-sex marriage in the District, saying he and his supporters would seek to overturn the law in the coming months through a voter initiative.
Elections board officials joined gay D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At Large) in pointing out that an initiative would likely be disqualified for the same reason the referendum was — it would violate the human rights law.
Catania, meanwhile, has said he plans to introduce a full same-sex marriage bill into the Council later this year that would allow same-sex marriages to be performed in the city. He has declined to release a specific date for introducing the legislation, but Council sources have said Catania was expected to introduce it shortly after the Council returns from its summer recess in September.
No serious attempt to block the law recognizing same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions has surfaced so far in the Democratic controlled Congress. Congress has authority to pass or repeal any D.C. law under the city’s limited Home Rule charter.
Capitol Hill observers expect lawmakers who oppose same-sex marriage to introduce a repeal measure later this year in the form of an amendment to the D.C. appropriations bill, which Congress approves each year.
David Smith, vice president of the Human Rights Campaign, said his organization is hopeful that Democratic leaders in the House and Senate would line up enough support to block any attempt to overturn the D.C. marriage recognition law.
Wolfson of Freedom to Marry said the full same-sex marriage rights bill that Catania is expected to introduce in the fall would likely receive a greater degree of opposition in Congress than the measure recognizing marriages from other jurisdictions.
“One thing people really need to understand is that while we want to continue the advance in the District and other places, it’s only going to happen if we really build public support,” Wolfson said.
He noted that the work done so far by the local advocacy group D.C. For Marriage played an important role in laying the groundwork for the same-sex marriage recognition law that took effect Tuesday.
D.C. gay activist Michael Crawford, the group’s president, said the group plans to continue its community meetings in city neighborhoods, where same-sex couples and their supporters will provide first-hand stories about their relationships and the need for full marriage equality.
“That needs to be ratcheted up five times as much in order to build support in the District to prevent the right wing from pushing a ballot measure that will try to take it away,” Wolfson said. “We will see more opposition with the marriage bill than we did so far with the [recognition] bill. And though I believe we can win, it’s not going to happen just because the City Council passes a law. We have to work for it.”
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