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novapsycheN.Y. Ministers Charged for Marrying Gays
Two ministers were charged with criminal offenses Monday for marrying 13 gay couples — apparently the first time in U.S. history that clergy members have been prosecuted for performing same-sex ceremonies.
District Attorney Donald Williams said gay marriage laws make no distinction between public officials and members of the clergy who preside over wedding ceremonies.
Unitarian Universalist ministers Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey were charged with solemnizing a marriage without a license, the same charges leveled against New Paltz Mayor Jason West, who last month drew the state into the widening national debate over same-sex unions.
[...] Williams said he decided to press charges because the marriages were "drastically different" from religious ceremonies because Greenleaf and Sangrey publicly said they considered them civil. Some Unitarian ministers, Greenleaf included, have been performing ceremonies for gay couples since before the issue entered the national debate.
"It is not our intention to interfere with anyone's right to express their religious beliefs, including the right of members of the clergy to perform ceremonies where couples are united solely in the eyes of the church or any other faith," Williams said.
Williams said his decision to bring charges was influenced by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's opinion that gay marriage is illegal in New York and by the injunction issued by a state supreme court justice against West.
Barbara Cox, a law professor and gay marriage expert at the California Western School of Law, said the case might be difficult to prosecute because clergy had not sworn to uphold the law.
"A minister who has no authority to make a marriage legally valid, how can you say they've broken the law?" Cox said.
Two ministers were charged with criminal offenses Monday for marrying 13 gay couples — apparently the first time in U.S. history that clergy members have been prosecuted for performing same-sex ceremonies.
District Attorney Donald Williams said gay marriage laws make no distinction between public officials and members of the clergy who preside over wedding ceremonies.
Unitarian Universalist ministers Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey were charged with solemnizing a marriage without a license, the same charges leveled against New Paltz Mayor Jason West, who last month drew the state into the widening national debate over same-sex unions.
[...] Williams said he decided to press charges because the marriages were "drastically different" from religious ceremonies because Greenleaf and Sangrey publicly said they considered them civil. Some Unitarian ministers, Greenleaf included, have been performing ceremonies for gay couples since before the issue entered the national debate.
"It is not our intention to interfere with anyone's right to express their religious beliefs, including the right of members of the clergy to perform ceremonies where couples are united solely in the eyes of the church or any other faith," Williams said.
Williams said his decision to bring charges was influenced by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's opinion that gay marriage is illegal in New York and by the injunction issued by a state supreme court justice against West.
Barbara Cox, a law professor and gay marriage expert at the California Western School of Law, said the case might be difficult to prosecute because clergy had not sworn to uphold the law.
"A minister who has no authority to make a marriage legally valid, how can you say they've broken the law?" Cox said.