Kramer Levin Aids Successful Defense of Executive Order Respecting Marriages of Same Sex Couples

A  New York trial court has declared lawful an executive order issued by Westchester County Executive Andrew J. Spano directing county agencies to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples validly contracted out-of-state.  Justice Joan B. Lefkowitz of New York Supreme Court, Westchester County, dismissed an action brought by conservative religious activists claiming that Spano had acted illegally in following the lead of then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and other government leaders who had opined that New York law required recognition of such marriages. The suit was defended both by the county and by same-sex spouses who moved to intervene as defendants, represented by Kramer Levin and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. 

Echoing arguments made by Lambda Legal and Kramer Levin, Justice Lefkowitz ruled that "[a]bsent legislation or [an] appellate court ruling that declares same-sex marriages out-of-state void here, though valid there, there is no positive law to interdict recognition of the marriage."  The court also noted the variety of rights recently extended to same-sex couples to demonstrate why recognizing valid out-of-state marriages was not abhorrent to public policy, but indeed required by long-established comity-rooted principles.  

Kramer Levin lawyers Jeffrey S. Trachtman, Norman C. Simon, and Aaron Fleisher worked with Lambda Legal on this matter.