Arizona Group Influences New York Litigation on Same-Sex Marriage

An Arizona-based group is playing an important role in New York's legal battles over same-sex marriage.

For the last two years, state courts across New York have been grappling with whether same-sex marriages performed elsewhere must be recognized in New York. Three of the cases that pose this question have been brought by a Christian group based in Arizona, the Alliance Defense Fund, on behalf of a handful of New Yorkers who say they object to having their government pay benefits to the spouses of public employees who are in same-sex marriages.

The question of whether the state must recognize gay marriages from Massachusetts, Canada, or elsewhere, was never answered in the landmark New York State Court of Appeals case in 2006 that found gay couples had no right under the state Constitution to marry. New York has long recognized marriages performed out of state, even if the couple might not be eligible to marry under New York law. This principle of comity has in the past led a New York court to recognize a marriage performed in Rhode Island between an uncle and a niece.

The Alliance Defense Fund lawyer who is bringing the three challenges, Brian Raum, said the development of the marriage recognition rule had at its core an understanding that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.

So far, that has been a losing argument in New York. In each of its three cases, the Alliance Defense Fund has lost in lower courts, although appeals are pending, including one in a Brooklyn court.

Besides the three Alliance Defense Fund cases, there have been at least four suits brought by same-sex couples in New York seeking recognition of their out-of-state marriages. These cases were brought for the purpose of obtaining a divorce or obtaining employment benefits for a spouse.