New York Town Holds Gay Weddings as Debate Spreads

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New York Town Holds Gay Weddings as Debate Spreads

 

Fri Feb 27, 3:00 PM ET

 

By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa

 

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. (Reuters) - The battle over gay marriage in the United States spread on Friday to a small New York town whose mayor began marrying same-sex couples in the first such ceremonies in the state.

 

The weddings in the village of New Paltz, about 80 miles

north of Manhattan, came on the day California's attorney

general planned to ask that state's Supreme Court to rule

on the legality of over 3,300 gay weddings in the past

two weeks in San Francisco.

 

New Paltz Mayor Jason West -- the state's first elected

Green Party mayor -- married couples in a festive

atmosphere outside Village Hall in what the 26-year-old

official has described as "legal marriage ceremonies."

West had so far officiated at 19 gay weddings on Friday.

 

Some 200 people cheered and held up placards saying:

"Congratulations" and "Bush Get Out of My Bedroom," while a much smaller group of protesters held signs saying: "Gay Marriage is Morally Wrong" and "Pray for Them."

 

Among those who tied the knot in the tiny college town were Billiam van Rostenberg, 39, from Long Island, and Major Jeffrey McGowan, 38.

 

"My whole life I felt discriminated against. I feel a great sense of relief. I am very happy," van Rostenberg said after his nuptials to his partner of six years. "We live in a country where good things can still happen."

 

West ended each ceremony saying, "By the powers vested in me by the state of New York, I now declare you legally wed," altering the normal "husband and wife" ending to that phrase.

 

But New York's Department of State said in a statement it defined marriage as a union "of one man and one woman" and that anyone marrying a gay couple "would be violating state law and (be) subject to the penalties in law."