NYCLU Targets Senate Votes with New Website, MarriageNY.com

Today, on the first day of Pride month, the New York Civil Liberties Union launched a new website offering New Yorkers easy tools to lobby their state senators to ask them to support the marriage bill. MarriageNY.com features videos of lesbian and gay couples from around New York State telling their stories and asking for the right to marry in New York, and offers simple ways for New Yorkers to spread the word that the senate must vote to protect all of New York’s families.

“There are only about three weeks left in the legislative session. New Yorkers must speak up now and demand protection for all of New York’s families,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “We must urge our senators to be on the right side of history and support fairness and equality for all New Yorkers.”

In May, the Assembly passed the marriage bill for the second time, and the governor has already pledged his support for it. The bill includes a religious exemption to make clear that it only impacts marriage as a civil institution – clergy will not have to solemnize marriages should the Senate approve the bill.

Among the 12 couples who volunteered to tell their story to MarriageNY.com are Skaneateles residents Peter Wiles and Jim Williams. The couple was married in Massachusetts in 2008.

“There were a lot of family and friends that would have liked to participate but couldn’t because it was out of state,” Williams said. “The only family member that was able to come to our wedding was our dog, Albert.”

Marriages between lesbian and gay New Yorkers entered into out-of-state are recognized in New York thanks to a 2008 NYCLU legal victory in Martinez v. County of Monroe. Following that victory, Governor Paterson directed all state agencies to revise their policies to recognize marriages of same-sex couples performed in other jurisdictions. Since then, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine and Iowa have legalized marriage for lesbian and gay couples. But New Yorkers are unable to get married at home.

“We have established our relationship amongst our friends, our family, our church – it would be nice to have it legalized so we’re completely protected,” explained Syracuse resident Susan Salomone, who stars in a short video on MarriageNY.com about her life with her partner Jean Salomone and their four children.

Other New Yorkers featured on MarriageNY.com include a Suffolk County police officer, a Puerto Rican mother of a gay son, a straight biracial couple, and families from Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan.