About 100 people, including Bishop Harry Jackson (left), testified Monday for and against a bill that would enact same-sex marriage in D.C. (Blade photo by Michael Key)

By LOU CHIBBARO JR., Washington Blade
Oct 27 2009, 10:59 AM  |     |     |  

Supporters of same-sex marriage far outnumbered opponents Monday at a sometimes contentious D.C. City Council hearing that lasted more than seven hours.

Eighty-one witnesses testified in favor of the bill to allow same-sex marriages to be performed in the District of Columbia, compared to 14 people who testified against it.

Council member Phil Mendelson, who chaired the hearing, pounded his gavel repeatedly as some of the witnesses who opposed same-sex marriage shouted biblical passages at the committee members and refused to end their testimony within the allotted time period.

In other cases, Mendelson consoled same-sex couple members who began crying as they testified about their love for one another and their strong desire to cement their relationships through marriage.

And in one of the hearing’s lighter moments, gay rights advocate Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow with the liberal People for the American Way Foundation, testified that he and his partner’s quest to get married has had the support of their families.

“You’ll make my mother very happy if you pass this bill,” he said.

The bill in question — the Religious Freedom & Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009 — was co-introduced by 10 of the Council’s 13 members, making it almost certain that the Council will pass it when it comes up for a final vote in December. Mayor Adrian Fenty has said he will sign the bill.

Council members David Catania (I-At Large), who wrote the bill, and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), both gay and longtime supporters of same-sex marriage, were among the 10 Council members who participated in the hearing.

If approved by the Council and signed by Fenty, the bill will go to Congress for a 30-day legislative review. Gay rights backers in Congress say they are hopeful that the Democratic controlled House and Senate will clear the bill, allowing it to become law in early 2010.

But some LGBT activists told the committee they could never be sure whether opponents on Capitol Hill might line up enough votes to block the bill or place restrictions on it that could prevent it from taking effect.

Edward Orzechowski, chief executive officer and president of the Washington Archdiocese’s Catholic Charities, told the hearing that his group would consider suing the city if the current wording in Catania’s marriage bill pertaining to exemptions for religious institutions isn’t strengthened.

Orzechowski and Jane Golden-Belford, chancellor and general counsel for the Washington Archdiocese, said the existing bill would force religious groups providing services to the poor, such as Catholic Charities, to provide health insurance benefits to the same-sex married spouses of organization employees, a development said to go against their “religious beliefs.”

Both said this would prompt Catholic Charities to discontinue their charitable work in D.C., including their operation of most of the city’s homeless shelters and the operation of adoption services.

Mendelson and Catania said they would review the concerns to see if possible compromise language can be drafted. But Catania said he was skeptical about changing the bill in a way that would allow groups like Catholic Charities to discrimination against gay employees, especially when the group received as much as 75 percent of its funds from the government.

“I find it offensive when you enter the public square and take public funds, yet you want to discriminate against people over employee benefits,” he said. “We’ll just see you in court if you have a difference over this.”

Other witnesses, including American University law professor Nancy Polikoff, asked the Council to remove from the bill a provision that calls for ending new domestic partnership registrations in the city by January 2011.

Polikoff and other activists said the issue of whether to phase out domestic partnerships once marriage becomes available to same-sex couples should be taken up later in a separate bill.

She and others, including gay activists Bob Summersgill and Rick Rosendall, testified that the Council should consider whether domestic partnerships should remain as an option for people who might prefer them instead of marriage, as well as to benefit some people who would not be able to marry.

Polikoff noted that D.C.’s domestic partnership law includes a provision that allows any two people living together in a “committed familiar relationship,” including two family members such as siblings, to register as domestic partners. Phasing out new registrations would end the ability of people in those situations to form domestic partnerships, Polikoff said.

“I believe the better course of action … is to leave our domestic partnership scheme intact until marriage equality is in place,” she said. “At that point, I will wholeheartedly support, and gladly participate in, the Council’s careful determination of the needs of the wide range of relationships that make up the families of the District of Columbia.”

Catania said he’s willing to consider removing the domestic partnership “sunset” provision from his bill and would discuss the issue with his Council colleagues as the time the committee prepares a final version of the bill.

Marriage opponent: Hearing 'is a farce' 

That the Council is expected to pass the bill drew expressions of disappointment and anger among some opponents at Monday’s hearing before the Council’s Committee on Public Safety & Judiciary, which Mendelson chairs.

“Don’t invite me to the coronation after you have already chosen the king,” said District resident Geraldine Washington. “This is a farce.”

Kathryn Pearson-West, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner from Ward 5, called the hearing a “mockery” and said of Council members that “all of you have already made up your minds.”

Like a number of the witnesses opposed to the bill, Pearson-West called on the Council to add a provision to the bill requiring that it be approved or rejected through a voter initiative before it could become law.

Several witnesses, including Bishop Harry Jackson, the Maryland minister who has emerged as the lead opponent of same-sex marriage in D.C., said they would appeal to Congress either to kill the legislation outright or require that it come before voters in a ballot measure similar to California’s Proposition 8.

Voters in California passed Proposition 8 last year, forcing the state to repeal its same-sex marriage law.

Jackson and several other ministers called on the Council to either withdraw the same-sex marriage bill or vote to place it on the ballot.

“The citizens should be given the right to decide whether the definition of marriage should be changed,” Jackson said at the hearing.

“When you change marriage you change the family,” he said. “When you change family, you change the way you teach kids in school.”

Notably, a greater number of clergy members testified in favor of the bill Monday than against it. Most of clergy members backing the bill said they were members of the recently formed coalition D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality.

Among the coalition members to testify for the same-sex marriage bill were Rev. Dr. Dennis Wiley of Covenant Baptist Church in Anacostia; Rev. Susan Hayward of First Congregational Church of Christ of Washington; Rev. Dyan McCray of Unity Fellowship Church of Washington; Rev. Charles Arehart of Metropolitan Community Church of Washington; Rev. Paul Roberts Abernathy of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church; and Rev. Dean Snyder of Foundry United Methodist Church.

Rev. Martin Holley, auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, testified against the bill.

Rev. Dr. Joseph Palacios, a Catholic priest and Georgetown University professor who testified as a member of Catholics United for Marriage Equality, pointed to public opinion polls showing a majority of U.S. Catholics under the age of 65 support the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Religious excemptions called inadequate 

Catania’s same-sex marriage bill allows clergy, churches and all religious institutions to refuse to perform same-sex marriages if doing so is contrary to their religious beliefs.

The bill also allows churches and other religious institutions to refuse to allow their buildings and facilities to be used for same-sex marriage ceremonies or to provide benefits and services related to same-sex marriage.

But it doesn’t provide this exemption to a religious institution that provides services or facilities to the general public rather than just to members of its faith.

Orzechowski and Golden-Belford of the Washington Archdiocese said they oppose the bill in its entirely, but if the Council were to pass it, they would like the exemption to be broadened to allow groups like Catholic Charities to refuse to offer employee benefits such as health insurance to same-sex married spouses of their employees.

Both said providing such benefits would violate Catholic doctrine, which disapproves of same-sex marriage.

“The key provision that would appear to provide a religious exemption to religious organizations … gives with one hand and takes away,” Golden-Belford said.

“It provides an exemption but then says the exemption is not available to any religious organization that serves the public,” she said. “But that is also integral to our faith. That is serving our fellow man and in the many, many ways in which we do it.

“We would like to be able to continue to do that and to comply with the law. But as currently drafted, that isn’t possible.”

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