Gay and lesbian couples started tying the knot in Portland, Oregon, this week after the county issued same-sex marriage licenses, joining the rapidly spreading national movement, the AP reports. On Wednesday, Nyack, N.Y., Mayor John Shields said he would also start marrying gay couples and planned to seek a license himself to marry his same-sex partner. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said in a statement, "I personally would like to see the law changed, but must respect the law as it now stands." Spitzer said New York's law contains references to "bride and groom" and "husband and wife" and does not authorize same-sex marriage, and that "the local district attorney has the authority and responsibility to enforce the law."
As in San Francisco, New Paltz and elsewhere, marrying same-sex couples is being seen as an act of justified civil disobedience (by supporters) and wanton law-breaking (by opponents).
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist asked Congress to embrace a constitutional amendment banning these marriages. "Same sex marriage is likely to spread through all 50 states in the coming years," Frist said. "It is becoming increasingly clear that Congress must act." Well, the first sentence of his comment is true.
What Bush Has Wrought.
"President Bush's endorsement of a constitutional amendment
banning gay marriage could prove to be a great moment for gay
rights," says
a Washington Post op-ed by Steven Waldman (editor of the
interfaith site Beliefnet.com ). That's because the
fallback position that even Bush has said he can live with is civil
unions -- a position that until very recently was considered
"extreme." And the culture shifts, like a raging river in which you
can never stand in the same water for more than an
instant.