Appellate Court Upholds New York’s Marriage Equality Law

As some readers will recall, following New York State's passage of gay marriage last summer a far right lunatic organization - the so-called New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms (NYCF) which describes its mission as influencing “legislation and legislators for the Lord Jesus Christ” - filed a lawsuit claiming that the law was invalid because of the violation of General Assembly open meeting requirements.  That claim went down to defeat in a unanimous opinion the New York Appellate Division.  The court declared that “defendant New York State Senate did not violate the open meetings law ("OML")  in enacting the Marriage Equality Law ("MEA") and that marriages performed thereunder are not invalid.”  Here are highlights from Gay City News:

A unanimous panel of the New York Appellate Division has rejected a challenge to the state’s Marriage Equality Law (MEA) enacted on June 24, 2011.

The July 6 ruling, from the Rochester-based 4^th Department, came in response to a suit bought by New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms (NYCF), a group whose website describes its mission as influencing “legislation and legislators for the Lord Jesus Christ” and “voicing the pro-life and pro-family perspective.”

The group’s suit claimed the law was not validly enacted based on three factors –– the appearance of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Andrew Cuomo at closed-door meetings of the State Senate’s Republican caucus where the bill was discussed; Cuomo’s issuance of a “message of necessity” that allowed the Senate and the Assembly to vote on the bill without allowing members three days to study its final text; and the locking-down of a part of the State Capitol building during the Senate floor debate and vote.

The closed-door GOP meetings violated the state’s Open Meetings Law, NYCF alleged, while the “message of necessity” was “ultra vires,” or beyond the governor’s authority, and the Capitol lockdown prevented the plaintiffs from accessing senators, violating their freedom of speech.

Livingston County Supreme Court Justice Robert Wiggins, last November 18,  .  .  .  .   refused to dismiss the first claim, holding that the Open Meetings Law may have been violated. He accepted the plaintiffs’ argument that a meeting of the Republican caucus that also included non-Republicans meant it could not be sheltered by the OML’s exemption for private caucuses. That exemption states that a private party caucus qualifies even if it invites “guests,” but NYCF argued such “guests” must be members of the same political party.

In unanimously reversing Wiggins and ruling that the Senate did not violate the law, Justice Eugene Fahey wrote that the plain meaning of the statute did not limit the term “guests” in that way. A Senate party caucus can invite anybody as a guest other than a member of the Legislature from a different party, said the court.  Since neither Bloomberg nor Cuomo were members of the Legislature, they could be invited as guests without the caucus losing its exemption from the requirement that public business be conducted in public.

The court’s ruling went one step further, finding that even if the Open Meetings Law had been violated, that would not by itself justify invalidating the Marriage Equality Law. The OML gives the court the power, “in its discretion, upon good cause shown,” to declare that a violation justifies voiding legislation subsequently enacted. In this case, the court concluded, the plaintiffs failed to show “good cause.”

As a native of New York State, I am proud of the state of my birth.  Would that Virginia would drag itself out of a 19th century mindset and embrace the 21st century and equality for all citizens.