Since I’m not a lawyer, my understanding could be and probably is fallacious. My understanding was that the State in which a marriage occurred was the one that had standing to adjudicate disputes regarding marital rights. Pursuant to that, a court could accept jurisdiction on a case if a) both parties consented, b) both parties agreed to be governed by the laws of that court and c) the relationship would have or could have otherwise been created in like manner in the jurisdiction. Hence, I’m confused on how an appellate court in New York could rule that a private company needs to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in Canada and therefore provide benefits to the spouse.
Even though gay couples may not legally marry in New York, the appellate court in Rochester held that a gay couple’s 2004 marriage in Canada must be respected under the state’s longstanding “marriage recognition rule,” and that an employer’s denial of health benefits had discriminated against the couple on the basis of their sexual orientation.
“The Legislature may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad,” a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ruled unanimously in rejecting a 2006 lower court decision. “Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York.”
Update:
For well over a century, New York has recognized marriages solemnized outside of New York unless they fall into two categories of exception: (1) marriage, the recognition of which is prohibited by the “positive law” of New York and (2) marriages involving incest or polygamy, both of which fall within the prohibitions of “natural law” (Matter of May, 305 NY 486, 491; see Moore v Hegeman, 92 NY 521, 524; Thorp v Thorp, 90 NY 602, 605; see generally Van Voorhis v Brintnall, 86 NY 18, 24-26). Thus, if a marriage is valid in the place where it was entered, “it is to be recognized as such in the courts of this State, unless contrary to the prohibitions of natural law or the express prohibitions of a statute” (Moore, 92 NY at 524; see also Thorp, 90 NY at 606; Van Voorhis, 86 NY at 25-26). Under that “marriage-recognition” rule, New York has recognized a marriage between an uncle and his niece “by the half blood” (May, 305 NY at 488), common-law marriages valid under the laws of other states (see Matter of Mott v Duncan Petroleum Trans., 51 NY2d 289, 292-293), a marriage valid under the law of the Province of Ontario, Canada of a man and a woman both under the age of 18 (see Donohue v Donohue, 63 Misc 111, 112-113), and a “proxy marriage” valid in the District of Columbia (Fernandes v Fernandes, 275 App Div 777), all of which would have been invalid if solemnized in New York. We conclude that plaintiff’s marriage does not fall within either of the two exceptions to the marriage-recognition rule. “[A]bsent any New York statute expressing clearly the Legislature’s intent to regulate within this State marriages of its domiciliaries solemnized abroad, there is no positive law in this jurisdiction” to prohibit recognition of a marriage that would have been invalid if solemnized in New York (May, 305 NY at 493 [internal quotation marks omitted]; see also Van Voorhis, 86 NY at 37). The Legislature has not enacted legislation to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages validly entered into outside of New York, and we thus conclude that the positive law exception to the general rule of foreign marriage recognition is not applicable in this case.
The natural law exception also is not applicable. That exception has generally been limited to marriages involving polygamy or incest or marriages “offensive to the public sense of morality to a degree regarded generally with abhorrence” (May, 305 NY at 493), and that cannot be said here.
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