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New York Marriage Challenge Moves to Highest Court

By John Caher and Daniel Wise
January 04, 2006

Same-sex couples have no constitutional right to marry, New York's Appellate Division, 1st Department, ruled on Dec. 8, in the first decision by a state appeals court to address the issue. Rejecting a constitutional challenge, Justice Milton L. Williams wrote for a 4-1 majority that the state's limitation of marriage to a “union between one man and one woman” is based upon “innate, complementary, procreative roles, a function of biology, not mere legal rights.” Joining in the majority decision were Justice James M. Catterson, George D. Marlow, and John W. Sweeny Jr.

In dissent, Justice David B. Saxe argued that the concept of marriage has sufficiently evolved in recent years to encompass the right to select a spouse of one's choice, including a same-sex partner. To refuse to extend the rights attendant upon marriage to same-sex couples, Saxe wrote, is to “perpetuate a deeply ingrained form of legalized discrimination.”

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