Georgia, New York outlaw gay marriage

WASHINGTON – The highest courts of New York and Georgia ruled Thursday that same-sex couples are not entitled to marry, delivering a twin blow to gay rights advocates that leaves Massachusetts the only state in which such unions are legal.

The New York Court of Appeals ruled that a state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman is constitutional, finding that any new meaning for such an old institution would have to be written by the state legislature, not the courts.

The Georgia Supreme Court, meanwhile, upheld an amendment to that state’s constitution, approved by three-fourths of Georgia voters, that prohibits gay partners from marrying or claiming benefits under a civil union.

Coming hours apart in one of the country’s most liberal states and one of its most conservative, the two rejections of same-sex marriage demonstrate the intense hold the issue has taken across the nation’s legal and political landscape – and the difficulty proponents face in trying to alter the status quo.

New York and Georgia were among eight states with pending litigation that gay rights activists have targeted, regarding them as promising terrain to challenge state laws or constitutional amendments that prohibit homosexual partners from getting married.

Advocates on both sides had been awaiting the New York opinion with particular anticipation, coming as it did from a relatively left-leaning court in a state with a large concentration of gay residents. The case, filed on behalf of 44 gay and lesbian couples, turned on large questions of due process and equal rights.

The New York court, in a 4 to 2 opinion written by Judge Robert Smith, sidestepped the question of whether same-sex marriage is worthwhile. “It is not for us to say whether same-sex marriage is right or wrong,” the court wrote, saying that persuasive arguments exist on both sides.

Instead, the court focused on whether the state legislature had a rational, nondiscriminatory basis for limiting marriage to a man and a woman. The judges concluded that legislators could reasonably believe that such marriages benefited children. Unlike racism, the judges concluded, “the traditional definition of marriage is not merely a by-product of historical injustice.”