New Paltz, NY marries gay couples (article)

[Miss Modular]

Mayor of N.Y. Town Marries Gay Couples
41 minutes ago Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!


By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press Writer

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. - Up to a dozen gay couples began exchanging wedding vows on the steps of village hall Friday in a spirited ceremony that opened another front on the growing national debate over gay marriage.

Jason West, the 26-year-old Green Party mayor in this village 75 miles north of New York City, joined Gavin Newsom of San Francisco as the country's only mayors to marry same-sex couples.

Billiam van Roestenberg and Jeffrey McGowan, both 39, were the first to wed to the cheers of the crowd.

"What we're witnessing in America today is the flowering of the largest civil rights movement the country's had in a generation," West said.

More than 100 people, mostly supporters of gay marriage, turned out on the green across from village hall, outnumbering family and friends of the couples there to marry. A few scattered protesters carried signs opposing gay marriage.

Jay Blotcher of High Falls, N.Y., said that while West could only give him a certificate and not a marriage license, it was still important to go through the ceremony.

"We have to show people who we are," he said. "We've been badmouthed by religious zealots. We've been deprived by President Bush (news - web sites) and we have to show people that we're your friends, neighbors and family."

One protester stood outside the hall with a sign that read, in part, "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

"It's against nature," Angelo Da'Quaro said. "It's against religion, it's against all of that."

Gay marriage has exploded onto the national scene in recent months as judges and local officials have aggressively attempted to redefine marriage. A bill in the New York Legislature would ban same-sex marriages, saying a "marriage or union is absolutely void if contracted by two persons of the same sex."

[Brandon]

Good for them.

[mew barios]

i know news like this is prolly tiresome to most people, but to me it is so heartening. jus a couple years ago all this stuff seemed impossibly distant, an now it almost seems like there may be genuine, legally recognized gay marriage in my lifetime. :o i would nu have dreamed.

[Matt Harty]

Well there's being gay, and then there's taking it too far.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Hehe, it's funny to see this making some national waves. Jason is a good guy.

[phnompehn]

I know that gay people have the right to marry (for legal and economic purposes, as I haven't met a whole lot of highly religious gay people, but they could exist in bizzaro world), and I support it. And it's cool that people are sticking it to the man like this. I've never seen the religious right steaming so much, it's great.

But all in all, it's kinda... fruity.

When I think of sticking it, I think of protests and useless petitions. Not actually physically "sticking it" to another man.