N.Y. No Gay

Sigh ... it will be a happy day indeed when the 'old guard' is dead and buried and the rest of us can get on with things. What a bunch of frightened right-wing baffoons.

N.Y. top court rules against gay marriage
6 July 2006. 12.37 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York's highest court ruled Thursday that gay marriage is not allowed under state law, rejecting arguments by same-sex couples who said the law violated their constitutional rights.
The Court of Appeals, in a 4-2 decision, said New York's marriage law is constitutional and clearly limits marriage to between a man and a woman.
Any change in the law would have to come from the state legislature, Judge Robert Smith said.
"We do not predict what people will think generations from now, but we believe the present generation should have a chance to decide the issue through its elected representatives," Smith wrote.
Gov. George Pataki's health department and state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office had argued that New York law prohibited issuing licences to same-sex couples. The state had prevailed in lower appeals courts.
The judges declined to follow the lead of high court judges in neighbouring Massachusetts, who ruled that same-sex couples in that state had the same right to wed as straight couples.
The four cases decided Thursday were filed two years ago when the Massachusetts decision helped usher in a series of gay marriage controversies from Boston to San Francisco.
Since the Massachusetts ruling, about a dozen states have approved constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, and 19 currently outlaw it.