Rochester Democrat & Chronicle on the upcoming anniversary of NY's Marriage Equality law.
For gays, a year of getting hitched
New York reflects on law’s anniversary
SEAN DOBBIN
Staff writer
Cracking the glass underfoot, Marsha Rifkin and Chris Urban looked out upon the tear-soaked faces of their friends and family.
“Mazel tov!”
They’d waited 35 years to hear those words, but for Rifkin’s mother, that was seven weeks too long.
Betty Rifkin, who died in April, had always been fully accepting of her daughter, even as a small handful of other family members on both sides struggled to reconcile traditional val*ues with the relationship.
Excited for the wedding, she’d al*ready chosen her outfit before dying suddenly.
“I was very angry at that. I was an*gry that the (same-sex marriage) law took so long to pass, and then I was guilty that we didn’t do it sooner,” said Urban, 57, of Henrietta, who married Rifkin earlier this month. “But we real*ly believe that her spirit was there with us.”
For same-sex couples throughout the state, it’s been a year filled with emotion.
The Marriage Equality Act, the law that legalized same sex marriage, signed a year ago today, has led to thousands of couples across the state tying the knot.
Meanwhile, opponents are still fighting the legislation — a legal challenge is working its way through the courts — and the economic impact of the law has yet to be determined.
But the couples who are celebrating equality for the first time reflect on the past year using the language of joy.
Amazement. Disbelief. Elation.
And, of course, pride.
“It’s something that couldn’t be, that now can,” said Annette Dragon, a Rochester-based wedding photographer who herself is gay. “People have waited for, in some cases, 35 years to do what everyone else can do. It’s an extra layer of joy.”
‘A strong tradition’
For several weeks after Betty Rifkin’s death, Rifkin and Urban weren’t certain they’d be able to get excited for their wedding.
But that started to change when they picked up their marriage license from Henrietta Town Court. Suddenly, it all seemed real again, and Urban went back to being a “giddy bride,” while Rifkin marveled at the possibility of a unity which she never would’ve dreamed possible when she was younger. “Really, we didn’t ever think we’d see it in our lifetimes,” said Rifkin, 57. “Even the way we feel now, after the wedding, is amazing. We didn’t really think it was going to be that different, but we just have this sense of peace and love.” Locally, same-sex couples said that while it was hard to put into words, being married has a decidedly different feeling than that of a domestic partnership. “I think it’s a little more connected feeling,” said Todd Perkins, 44, of Rochester, who married his longtime partner, Mark Ritter, in January. “Now, you’ve got a piece of paper saying so. It’s an overwhelming feeling to see that ‘Wow, it’s legal!’ ” New York is now one of eight states in the nation to allow same-sex marriage, and gay men and women have been more inclined to look to the state for employment as a result. But a recent poll suggests that they may also be specifically targeting Rochester.
Culling information from 10 million personality surveys, dating website Chemistry.com found that Rochester was the fourth-most desirable city in the country for gay men and women who are looking to get married and start a family. “Rochester has a strong tradition of acknowledging and honoring civil rights,” said state Assemblyman Harry Bronson, D-Rochester, who was the first openly gay member of the state legislature from upstate New York. “We’ve done that with Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, and that history has continued with the LGBT movement.” Rochester’s gay community does indeed have deep roots. The Empty Closet , a monthly Rochester tabloid, is the oldest gay newspaper in the country, and the Gay Alliance of Genesee Valley has been in existence since 1973, longer than most national organizations.
But other factors have augmented the community’s growth over the past several decades. The increasing influence of area universities has led to more young people and more highly educated people residing in the region — which are both demographics shown in polls to be more inclined to support same sex marriage — and a handful of area churches have been supportive of gay marriage since long before the law passed.
“If you’re going to live in Rochester, and you were gay, where would you live? ‘Monroe Ave. or Park Ave.’ That’s what you used to think,” said Elaine Cichocki-Lalka, who married her longtime partner in July. “But now, it’s anywhere.”
Opponents are concerned over what Jason McGuire called a “generational shift” that is under way due to the legalization of same-sex marriage.
“When you further weaken the institution of marriage, it’s not one year or five years we’re worried about, but if you look at it in 10 years, or a generation out, then you can see the shift that occurs,” said McGuire, the executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a Spencerport based conservative advocacy group.
In the hopes of overturning the law, New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms is suing the Senate over last year’s vote, claiming that the vote was held illegally because lawmakers met behind closed doors to discuss it.
The case was heard before a state appeals court in Rochester in May after it advanced from state Supreme Court, and McGuire is hopeful that it will ultimately be heard in the state Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court. State Conservative Party chairman Michael Long said the Legislature should have taken the issue to voters.
“The voters of the state should have had an opportunity to cast a ballot on it,” he said. “I believe if that had happened, it would have failed, as it has in every other state in the nation.”
Economic impact
But it was, of course, legislators who passed the law, and on the night that it was signed, Jason Ripple remembers exactly where he was sitting in Good Luck restaurant when he heard the news. His partner of the last 10 years, Stephen Cass, posted a celebratory message on Facebook, and the restaurant was soon abuzz.
Then, after the initial jubilation wore off, Ripple had a thought: “I have to start saving money.”
In October, Ripple and Cass will travel to New York City, where they’ll drop $50,000 on an eightcourse dinner party for about 80 of their closest friends. Ripple isn’t certain how that money would have been spent otherwise, but it’s likely that it would have left the state, and possibly the country. “We like to travel a lot,” said Ripple, 30, of Rochester. “Chances are, that money would have been spent on vacations.” Last year, in the months prior to the law being signed, the Senate Independent Democratic Conference released a study that estimated that the law would result in about 66,524 same-sex marriages over 3 years, and would benefit New York to the tune of $390 million. Critics called the projection overly optimistic, but measuring the actual economic impact of the same-sex marriage law is challenging, in part because it’s difficult to determine how many samesex couples have gotten married statewide since July 24. New York City estimated that 5,054 marriage licenses were issued to same-sex couples through early February. Through early June, 3,037 same-sex couples had gotten married outside of New York City, accounting for about 6 percent of all marriages, according to data from the state Department of Health. But an additional 8,856 couples outside the city, or 19 percent of the total, omitted gender information. In determining whether the economic forecasts were accurate, establishing the makeup of those couples is crucial — and nearly impossible. Gender information was only included on marriage licenses after the samesex marriage law passed, so there’s no grounds for comparison. As of early June, the city of Rochester had issued 156 wedding licenses for same-sex couples; the city does not keep records on how many licenses have omissions in the gender section. Merchants said they’d seen a definite bump in wedding-related sales after the law was passed. “I would say anywhere between 5 to 10 percent is a very good guess, and that’s business that we wouldn’t have otherwise had, so it’s definitely been a blessing,” said Jimmy Catalano, wedding and events coordinator for Kittelberger Florist in Webster. About 10 percent of the weddings this year at Artisan Works, which hosts close to 100 weddings annually, are same-sex, said Victoria Benz-Gehrke, the facility’s wedding coordinator. Susan Plunkett, owner of Plunkett’s Fabulous Foods, said her catering business now gets about 5 percent of its business from same-sex marriages and events.
Dragon said that half of the weddings she’s photographing this year are same-sex, and wedding planner Eve Elzenga, Dragon’s partner, said that her business has seen steady growth since the law’s passage, and that she expects it to continue to pick up through the summer. “The supposition was that after the law passed, gay people would just go crazy and run out and get married,” said Elzenga. “But that’s not true. People wanted to look at what the legal implications were, and they also wanted to have really wonderful weddings, and you don’t put a wedding together in a weekend. So I think we’re seeing a much larger percent of people being married this summer, because they’ve had a year to plan.”
Future of the issue
When Dragon and Elzenga got married in New York, it wasn’t the first time they’d tied the knot, having also had celebrations in Vermont, Hawaii and Canada. “We were like the Phish fans of gay marriage,” said Elzenga. “Wherever they let us (marry), we would go.”
Not all same-sex couples in New York have jumped at the chance, however. While the Defense of Marriage Act — which in part says that states do not have to acknowledge same-sex marriages issued elsewhere — was deemed unconstitutional by the Obama administration, the law is still on the books and is being defended in court by lawyers for the House of Representatives. “It’s a wonderful thing that New York state has done, but the legal benefits are still very cloudy, and until DOMA is rescinded or repealed either by the courts or legislature, we’re sort of in legal limbo,” said Thomas Wahl, past president of the Log Cabin Republicans of New York State, a group that supports equality for LGBT Americans.
With the issue’s future still murky, Wahl, a Pittsford resident who has been with his partner for 21 years, has decided not to get married just yet. Lisa Cichocki-Lalka, meanwhile, was among the first people to have a same-sex wedding in New York, but she, too, remains disappointed by the lack of federal recognition.
“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, they’re legally married, all is wonderful,’ ” said Cichocki-Lalka, 51, of Rochester. “But it’s not, because we lack the federal support. We picked up 1,324 benefits from New York state, but we’re still lacking about a thousand from the federal government.”
After voters in North Carolina passed a measure in May, there are now 33 states with legislation on the books that bans gay marriage. But recent studies suggest that national acceptance may just be a matter of time. A May Gallup poll showed that 70 percent of Americans between the age of 18 and 34 support same-sex marriage, compared with 53 percent of people who were aged 35 to 54, and 39 percent of those who were 55 and older. “If you look at an issue like abortion, you have a large group of young people who are pro-life, and a large group of young people who are pro-choice,” said Stephanie Li, an associate professor of English at the University of Rochester who studies political rhetoric issues. “But (same-sex marriage) falls under such generational lines. Younger Americans predominantly favor it. Sexuality is not even an issue for them.”
There has been political backlash over the law’s passage in New York. After a much-publicized, heavily monetized back-and-forth in the capitol one year ago, four Republican senators voted for same-sex marriage, and three of them are now facing primary challenges as a result. The fourth, Sen. James Alesi, R-Perinton, is not seeking re-election. But Li said same sex marriage won’t likely be talked about much come November, locally or nationally, expecting the issue to take a back seat to a debate over jobs and the economy. McGuire, of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, thinks that the issue could end up costing President Barack Obama some votes, however. In May, Obama expressed his support for same-sex marriage. “I think there will be Democrats who will not vote for the president because of his stance on marriage, particularly African-Americans,” he said. He also disagreed with Li over the issue’s longev-ity, saying that like abortion, it would divide the country for generations to come. “Traditional marriage advocates are still carrying this banner,” said McGuire, who last month joined many other opponents of same sex marriage in a news conference held in Washington, D.C. “Standing side by side, across denominational and political lines, we all agreed that moving forward, this would not be taken for granted.”
