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Photo by Fredo Alvarez
The decision is a victory for same sex marriage advocates, and a blow to the opposition movement being led by area black religious leaders.
The D.C. Council voted 12-1 in May in favor of recognizing same sex marriages performed elsewhere. The success of this legislation has largely been viewed as a test run on whether the Council will take up another bill later this year legalizing gay marriages performed in the District.
More: The BOEE has posted its decision, which you can download in PDF format, here. We've pasted the key passage below; note the inclusion of Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry's history with this section of the Human Rights Act. Barry was the only Council member to vote against the legislation in May.
The Washington Blade has more, including a reaction quote from gay At-large D.C. Council member David Catania, who has said that he plans to introduce a same sex marriage bill this year.
And here's the quote from At-large Council member Phil Mendelson, who introduced the marriage recognition bill: "I completely agree with today’s decision of the Board of Elections and Ethics. As I and many others stated when we testified in front of the Board last week, civil rights should not be subject to a referendum. I applaud this decision, as it was based firmly in the tradition of the District’s own progressive Human Rights Act. Recognizing marriages lawfully entered into in other jurisdictions is logical and just. It is unacceptable for government to sanction discrimination on the basis of one’s sexual orientation."
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Thank you, Councilman Barry, for being the only "politician who is moral" enough to vote their hopelessly deluded conscious.
Until it becomes politcally expedient to do otherwise.
praise jebus!
Hah, the decision's jab at Barry is priceless.
At this rate, you'll be able to find Barry standing in front of the Wilson Building doing a shuffle dance with his pants around his ankles while singing, "The Old Grey Mare."
Awesome. What a great Pride weekend and now this news. Go DC.
No tasty nasty campaign slogans?
No robocalls about how the gays are going to come and steal your bibles?
No middle-of-night fliers proving that the fire-eating lesbians want to also eat your babies?
BOEE has deprived us all of our right to be inundated with campaign inanity this year.
Kudos DC!
Cheers, Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace,
Washington CT USA
And kudos to New England and Iowa too!
This summer I will be officiating for many couples who are coming to CT from CA, VA, LA, and NY to wed because they aren't allowed to wed in their own home states just yet...
It's time for marriage equality and fairness in America!
http://justicesofthepeace.blogspot.com
Woah hey now, that doesn't help the cause any... The southeast is not entirely the issue here, it's Rev. Harry Jackson and his rag tag perishiners from PG County that are stirring up all this trouble, FYI.
And Jackson's Hope Christian Church is in Beltsville. Not exactly "southeast."
So did they ever figure out what was going on in Rev. Harry Jackson's one-room DC condo with his totally non-gay roommate? Because I'm really hoping it involves strichnyne, snakes, and a lot of "holy oil."
And Barry White's Greatest Hits...
I am so completely overjoyed by this that I could hardly contain myself on the way into the office; I wanted to do a little dance on the Metro... As much as I find it strange to be celebrating what some percieve as a circumventing of democracy--I feel that there are some times when protecting the rights of a minority does outweigh the popular group's opinions. I am glad that the Board ruled in favor of justice and equality and I'm furthermore glad that I could be there to see this process unfold and feel like I had a part in this! This is a great 'after-pride' gift to the GLBT citizens of the District; one which I pray will not be soured by some 11th-hour attempt to de-rail the legislation by a bitter legislator in Congress with a vendetta.
Holla_n_back, please don't write "n___ers" on DCist. It's inappropriate. If you want to say "newspaper circulation managers", you can just spell it out.
And, being the kind of person who doesn't like thinking ill of people, I sure hope you meant "newspaper circulation managers".
Whoa. I thought he was talking about nooners. It's not like there's anything else to do in PG County.
All the more reason to rent a one-room condo in DC with a totally non-gay roommate.
Does anyone else want to play calm, disinterested lawyer with me and notice that this ruling makes no sense? The only way that a referendum on gay marriage could "interfere with basic civil and human rights" would be if gay marriage were already legal. And by the same token, a vote on gay marriage by the City Council should ALSO be illegal. After all, a City Council vote will REALLY interfere with civil rights, because Congress has no qualms about quashing a City Council vote -- yet Congress couldn't quash a city-wide referendum without raising absolute hell.
The point of the ruling is that gay marriage already *is* legal in other jurisdictions, and the Act simply recognizes marriages that are valid in other jurisdictions as valid in DC. In other words, another state, say, Vermont, recognizes a marriage as legally valid, conferring all associated rights (well, all non-Federal rights, for now). The Act recognizes those rights in DC. The proposed referendum would strip those pre-existing rights away, based on sexual orientation, and would therefore violate the Human Rights Act. So the decision of the BOEE wouldn't necessarily apply to a referendum regarding an act legalizing gay marriages performed *in* the District.
And for the record, Congress can and has quashed a citywide referendum without a second thought - they pimps-smacked the living f8ck out of the medical marijuana referendum back around 1995 or so. Didn't even blink when they showed us their pinky ring up close and personal.
I can't see how you don't get it...
DC: Oh Jane, your marriage from Iowa is perfectly valid and legit, tell your husband Bob that you both will recieve all 1,100+ of your rights here in the District.
DC: Hi Dick, your marriage from Iowa is...not valid in the District. Sorry. Why? Oh because you married a man and well, we don't recognize marriages if both partners are gay and have the same sex; we believe in moral values. Bye!
Essentially, the Distict would be treating the second couple differently based on their sexual orientation and gender. They would be denied marriage recognition on the base of actual or percieved sexual orientation, biological sex, and possibly even gender identity/expression. It seems so very clear to me... but then I'm the one being told I'm less of a citizen because I'll be marrying a man (that is if I ever find a good one, haha)...
While not taking a substantive position on this ruling, I do want to mention that the incongruity of the protest signs in the attached photo is irksome. While clearly part of the same display, the first seems to be advocating democracy (and thus advocating a vote on a referendum on whether or not the city should recognize same sex marriages performed elsewhere), while the second is decrying how unfair it would be for a city to vote on something as personal and individual as marriage, especially in reference to a minority population.
I may not know where I stand on this issue (voting or not voting), but I know I can't stand protesters (on both sides). Anyone with enough free time to put these displays up generally values a loud message over a coherent one.