GAY PEOPLE'S

Chronicle

•

Ohio's Newspaper for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com Volume 25, Issue 16 January 29, 2010

Registry foes are

back in court

Their case against it is the same as one that lost in 2004

by Eric Resnick

Cleveland-Opponents Cleveland's domestic partner registry, who sued the city claiming it violates the state marriage ban amendment, now want an appeals court to reinstate the case after a judge threw it out.

The suit, filed last August by a newly-founded group and a Cleveland anti-gay activist, was dismissed in November by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joseph D. Russo.

It is nearly identical to a 2004 case which their attorneys lost against a Cleveland Heights registry.

The Heights measure was ultimately upheld by the Eighth District Ohio Court of Appeals the same court that will hear this case.

The current suit was filed by a group calling itself Cleveland Taxpayers for the Ohio Constitution and city resident Dorothy McGuire. They are represented by attorney David Langdon of Cincinnati-who wrote the marriage ban amendment-and the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Arizona.

The same lawyers represented former Cleveland Heights councilor Jimmie Hicks six years ago in his suit against that city's registry, a measure identical to the Cleveland one.

The arguments in the current suit are also nearly identical to the ones rejected by the same courts in the Hicks suit.

Back then, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Robert Glickman ruled the domestic partner registry constitutional, adding, "The Cleveland Heights domestic partner registry is not beyond the scope of the municipalities' grant of power."

That ruling was appealed to the Eighth District, which upheld Glickman, declaring that the partner registry is constitutional and "an act of self-governance."

The amendment had not yet been passed when the Hicks case was decided.

In papers for the current case, Langdon told Judge Russo that the

Ohio constitution's marriage ban amendment "prohibit[s] the government from nouveau policy experimentation further impacting the already embattled institution of marriage."

Langdon quotes his ban amendment's second part.

"[The registry] is in conflict with the second sentence of the Marriage Amendment, in that it creates and recognizes a 'legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage'," Langdon wrote in the Cleveland suit.

"Thus, the city's adoption and administration of the [registry] constitutes an abuse of corporate power..."

Langdon notes the Ohio Supreme Court's 2007 State v. Carswell decision, which narrowed the amendment to prohibit only same-sex marriage and civil union as part of a ruling that it doesn't keep domestic violence laws from applying to unmarried couples.

He argues that the high court also meant to prohibit domestic partner registries, writing that the court only ruled the way it did in Carswell to preserve the domestic violence law.

Langdon called the domestic violence law "an otherwise useful statute," compared to the domestic partner registry, which has "no conceivable other than to allow those purpose couples who are prohibited from being married in this state to enter a government-sanctioned marriageapproximating relationship."

"To interpret the majority's holding in Carswell as prohibiting the recognition of only those relationships that bear literally each and every attribute of marriage and as permitting any relationship that lacks any of these attributes would be to suggest that the majority completely disregarded the language of the amendment," Langdon wrote.

"It should be presumed that the court would have not crafted a test so manifestly contrary to the plain text of the amendment," Langdon concluded, calling the city's interpreta-

Inside This Issue

Being nice

KATHRYN KAY

Windsong, Cleveland's feminist chorus, asks "Why Can't You Girls Be Nice?" as they rehearse the song before their January 24 "Draw Down the Moon" winter concert at the Church of the Covenant.

The singers, directed by Karen Weaver, celebrate 30 years of song this year, and are looking forward to performing again at the Womyn's Variety Show on February 13. Their next concert is set for May 23. They can be contacted at 216556-088 or www.windsongchorus.org.

tion of Carswell "overly literal."

The city, represented by assistant law director Michael Cosgrove, asked the court to dismiss the suit, arguing that the Supreme Court was clear in Carswell, and that Langdon is asking the court to define the powers of selfgovernance so narrowly that the city would not be able to operate municipal parks and stadiums or maintain its

streets.

Cosgrove told the court that Hicks was decided properly and called Langdon's presumption "mere partisan speculation:" Further, Cosgrove asserted that Langdon tried to mislead the court by quoting a subsequently reversed Pennsylvania case also dealing with rights of same-sex couples.

Russo agreed with the city and summarily dismissed the case without comment on November 11.

Langdon filed notice of appeal December 1, then was granted an extension to file his brief, which is now due February 8.

The registry has remained open uninterrupted, as have the identicalones in Cleveland Heights and Toledo.

'Don't ask' repeal won't be this year, says Armed Services chair

Page 2

Letters to the Editors..

Charlie's Calendar

Resource Directory

Violent, but hot

Page 6

Classifieds ........

Church links, TV ads mark Prop. 8 trial

by Anthony Glassman

San Francisco-The federal lawsuit challenging Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment that halted same-sex marriages in California, began on January 11, playing out like Law and Order: Strange Bedfellows and Obscure Points of Law Unit.

Regardless of the trial's outcome, the case is likely headed for the Supreme Court, whose ruling could strike similar amendments in 29 other states including Ohio or uphold them.

Arguing the case for the progay side, the plaintiffs are represented by the ultimate legal odd couple, Theodore Olson and David Boies. The two are best known for arguing against each other in the Bush v. Gore case on the Florida recount that decided the 2000 presidential election.

Despite Olson's conservative credentials, he presented the opening arguments for striking Prop. 8 as unconstitutional, and also released an opinion piece, in Newsweek magazine entitled "The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage: Why same-sex marriage is an American value."

"How could a politically active, lifelong Republican, a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, challenge the 'traditional' definition of marriage and press for an 'activist' interpretation of the Constitution to create another

'new' constitutional right?" he posits, voicing the concerns of his fellow conservatives.

"Many of my fellow conservatives have an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage," he notes. "This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation. At its best, it is a stable bond between two individuals who work to create a loving household and a social and economic partnership."

His arguments in court seem equally compelling.

He and Boies have produced documents, challenged by the defendants, illustrating the involvement of religious organizations in the campaign.

One such piece, an internal Mormon Church document indicating that volunteers had been identified in virtually every zip code in California, was found among the Prop. 8 campaign's

papers.

The defendants also challenged the playing of campaign advertisements in court. Those objections met with mixed results.

The court allowed commercials to be played that were used during the campaign, but disallowed others that appeared after the campaign.

The plaintiffs were using the ads to show the court that Prop. 8

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