New York edging towards gay marriage -- who's next?

New York governor David Paterson has directed that state agencies treat all marriages -- gay and straight -- from other states.

And good for him: The fact of the matter is that in addition to being a religious institution, marriage is also a civic one. There are any number of legal benefits to being married and they alone are sufficient reason to follow Massachusetts' lead.

But of course not everyone has this, ahem, enlighted attitude...

So I invite anyone interested in this over to U.S. News' opinion section where the day's open question is how states should deal with other states' same-sex marriages.

Comments

[burnt]

Thanks for your invitation to post elsewhere, but I'll hang here.

My guess is that Washington State is near the top of the list. We have to fight a very strong conservative base on the other side of the hills... WA is basically two states divided by a mountain range. Progressives helped push a comprehensive domestic partnership law through in 2006, which was recently updated and strengthened.

Although I commend Governor Paterson's solution that allowed executive action to circumvent those who foolishly fight the inevitable, his is a solution that does not allow full democratic process to validate change.

I am hoping that after our current Washington State Governor is re-elected, we can mount a campaign to legalize full marriage rights. California will be closely watched as a role model.