Gay marriage advocates have won a partial victory in New York, as the state’s highest court has left in place a lower court ruling that recognized a lesbian couple as being married.

The Court of Appeals declined yesterday to review the mid-level appellate court’s decision to recognize the couple’s Canadian marriage, the first such ruling by an appellate court in New York State.

For now, that lower court decision remains binding across the state.

In 2006, the state’s Court of Appeals found that there was no right to same-sex marriages under the state constitution, leaving unanswered the question of whether the state would recognize same-sex marriages and civil unions performed in other states and abroad. So far, lower courts around the state have mostly said yes.

There is no specific law out of Albany addressing the issue, but New York state has long recognized most marriages from other states, even when a couple would not be eligible to get married under New York law.

“Today is a great day for fairness in New York State,” the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Donna Lieberman, said in a statement sent via e-mail. “Now we need to work toward a New York where you don’t have to cross state or county lines to get married.”

The case at issue involved the 2004 marriage in Canada between Patricia Martinez and Lisa Ann Golden. Ms. Martinez, who worked at Monroe Community College in Rochester, sued her employer when it refused to extend health benefits to her spouse.

An appellate court in Brooklyn is set to hear a case posing the identical issue this year.