ALBANY – The state’s top Republicans blasted Gov. Paterson yesterday for overstepping his authority with a stealth effort to recognize same-sex marriages performed in California, Massachusetts or Canada.
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer) is moving to advance a Defense of Marriage Act that would roll back Paterson’s quiet May 14 order that agencies offer such couples rights now available only to heterosexual couples.
“The bill, we believe, would negate the governor’s directive to his agencies,” Bruno spokesman John McArdle said.
But Bruno’s measure faces an uphill battle in the Democrat-controlled Assembly.
Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long said he and other conservative leaders would consider suing the governor on grounds his directive violates the state Constitution.
In 2006, the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ruled that current state law does not recognize gay marriage.
In response, Paterson called gay marriage “beautiful,” adding, “Regardless of the tenets of the religion of some and the belief of some, it is something that our government should allow.”
Paterson said he was forced to push the state back into the center of the gay-marriage debate by a state appellate court ruling Feb. 1.
In it, the Rochester court held that the state must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states since it recognizes heterosexual marriages from other jurisdictions.
“I’m not making an end run around anybody,” Paterson said. “Some of those busy legislators who think I’m doing an end around them, maybe they should go into the Legislature and actually work on something.”
Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R-Schenectady) said, “It looks like trying to implement policies by governor caveat.”
“It’s not going to work. Really, it looks like he’s doing an end run around the Legislature.”
Paterson and gay-rights groups estimated that more than 1,300 state rules would be potentially impacted by the changes.
Mayor Bloomberg called Paterson’s move “the right thing to do.”
Additional reporting by Fredric U. Dicker, David Seifman and Julia Dahl