Court Opinion

ID: 9785286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:14:05.369037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:14.882301
License: Public Domain

Ciparick, J. (concurring).
Although I agree with the result reached by the majority, I write separately to set forth my view that the orders under review should be affirmed on the ground that same-sex marriages, valid where performed, are entitled to full legal recognition in New York under our State’s longstanding marriage recognition rule. The issue is squarely presented in these appeals and plaintiffs’ standing allegations are sufficient to allow us to reach it. The effect of the majority’s rationale in affirming these orders will be to permit an unworkable pattern of conflicting executive and administrative directives promulgated pursuant to the individual discretion of each agency head. We ought to avoid the confusion that would arise from a same-sex couple being considered legally married by one agency for one purpose but not married by another agency for a different purpose.
As the majority recognizes, we determined in Hernandez v Robles (7 NY3d 338 [2006]) that, currently, under the Domestic Relations Law, same-sex marriages may not lawfully be entered into in New York, and our State’s Constitution does not compel the recognition of same-sex marriages performed within the state. However, as the majority also notes, Hernandez did not address the issue whether New York law recognizes same-sex marriages validly performed in other jurisdictions. Several jurisdictions that border our state currently perform or will soon perform same-sex marriages, including Massachusetts (see Goodridge v Department of Pub. Health, 440 Mass 309, 798 NE2d 941 [2003]; Mass Acts 2008, ch 216, § 1 [repealing statute that voided marriages between nonresidents contrary to the law of the state of residence]), Connecticut (see Kerrigan v *378Commissioner of Pub. Health, 289 Conn 135, 957 A2d 407 [2008]), Vermont (see 15 Vt Stat Ann § 8 [“(m)arriage is the legally recognized union of two people”]) and Canada (see Civil Marriage Act, SC 2005, ch 33).
Principles of comity have given rise to New York’s well-settled marriage recognition rule, which “recognizes as valid a marriage considered valid in the place where celebrated” (Van Voorhis v Brintnall, 86 NY 18, 25 [1881]; see also Matter of May, 305 NY 486, 490 [1953]). Indeed, through our marriage recognition rule, we have recognized out-of-state marriages, valid where contracted, despite that the parties’ intent in entering the marital contract elsewhere was to evade New York laws proscribing their marriage from being performed here (see Thorp v Thorp, 90 NY 602, 605-606 [1882]; Van Voorhis v Brintnall, 86 NY at 32-33; see also Fisher v Fisher, 250 NY 313, 318 [1929]; Shea v Shea, 268 App Div 677, 687-688 [2d Dept 1945, Johnston, J., dissenting in part], revd on dissenting op of Johnston, J., 294 NY 909 [1945] [recognizing as valid an Illinois common-law marriage]). For example, in Matter of Mott v Duncan Petroleum Trans. (51 NY2d 289 [1980]), we recognized and gave effect to a common-law marriage contracted in the state of Georgia, despite the fact that New York does not recognize common-law marriages (id. at 291; Domestic Relations Law § 11). Although the spouses in Mott were domiciliaries of New York, they had vacationed for weeks at a time in Georgia, representing themselves there as husband and wife, sufficient to create a common-law marriage in that state (51 NY2d at 291-294). Similarly, in Matter of May, we recognized as valid a marriage performed in Rhode Island between a man and his niece, both residents of New York (see 305 NY at 493). Although New York law prohibits such a marriage as incestuous (Domestic Relations Law § 5), Rhode Island law at the time permitted marriage among blood relatives “ ‘solemnized among the Jews, within the degrees of affinity or consanguinity allowed by their religion’ ” (id. at 492, quoting RI Gen Laws, tit XXIV ch 243, §4).
Two exceptions to the marriage recognition rule have evolved (see Matter of May, 305 NY at 490). The first excepts from recognition out-of-state marriages where a New York statute clearly expresses “the Legislature’s intent to regulate within this State marriages of its domiciliaries solemnized abroad” (id. 493). In other words, for this “positive law” exception to apply, a statute must expressly convey a legislative intent to void a marriage *379legally entered into in another jurisdiction (see Van Voorhis, 86 NY at 34-35).
Our Legislature has not expressly prohibited the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Although the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) authorizes the states to pass so-called “mini-DOMAs”—and many states have done so (see e.g. Ga Code Ann § 19-3-3.1 [b] [declaring void” (a)ny marriage entered into by persons of the same sex pursuant to a marriage license issued by another state or foreign jurisdiction”])—New York has not, and the Legislature has enacted no other law expressly forbidding the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions or expressing any legislative intent that such marriages be voided.1 Thus, the positive law exception to recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages does not apply.
The second exception, which is narrowly applied and is sometimes called the “natural law” exception to the marriage recognition rule, denies recognition to out-of-state marriages abhorrent to New York public policy. The natural law exception has been invoked exceedingly rarely, only in cases involving incest or polygamy (see Van Voorhis, 86 NY at 26, citing Wightman v Wightman, 4 Johns Ch 343 [Ch Ct 1820] and Hutchins v Kimmell, 31 Mich 126 [1875]). We noted, in the closely related context of foreign divorce decrees, that “in a world of different people, [n]ations and diverse views and policies,” the public policy exception to the appropriate exercise of comity is applied rarely (Matter of Gotlib v Ratsutsky, 83 NY2d 696, 700 [1994]), and the application of the exception must be predicated upon a demonstration of “proximately related public policies fundamentally offensive and inimical to those of this State” (id.). “This high burden springs from an ordered sense of respect and tolerance for the adjudications of foreign Nations, [and the] parallel[ respect] . . . commanded among the States by the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution” (id., *380citing US Const, art IV¡ § l).2 Notably, for example, in Matter of May, where we recognized as valid the marriage performed in Rhode Island between a man and his niece that could not have lawfully been entered into in New York given that, by statute, it was deemed incestuous, we nevertheless explained that the “marriage, solemnized, as it was . . . was not offensive to the public sense of morality to a degree regarded generally with abhorrence and thus was not within the inhibitions of natural law” (305 NY at 493). Accordingly, the marriage did not fall within the natural law exception to the marriage recognition rule.
The “natural law” or public policy exception to the marriage recognition rule is inapplicable to same-sex marriages solemnized in our sister states or other foreign jurisdictions. The public policy of the State is deduced from the constitutional, statutory and decisional law, as well as from “prevailing social and moral attitudes of the community” (Intercontinental Hotels Corp. [Puerto Rico] v Golden, 15 NY2d 9, 14 [1964]). Today,3 the laws of New York protect committed same-sex couples in a myriad of ways. For example, Executive Law § 354-b permits same-sex domestic partners of military members killed in combat to receive supplemental burial allowances; Public Health Law § 2805-q (1) provides that “[n]o domestic partner shall be denied any rights of visitation of his or her domestic partner when such rights are accorded to spouses and next-of-kin at any hospital, nursing home or health care facility”; and Public Health Law § 4201 (1) (c) and (2) (a) (ii-a) permits a same-sex domestic partner to elect how to dispose of his or her partner’s remains. Many counties and municipalities have likewise adopted ordinances and resolutions extending recognition to same-sex couples and granting benefits accordingly.
In addition to statutory law, New York decisional law recognizes same-sex life partners as family members, such that the surviving partner can challenge an eviction proceeding {see *381Braschi v Stahl Assoc. Co., 74 NY2d 201, 211-214 [1989]). We have also permitted same-sex partners to challenge their exclusion from housing set aside for married couples on disparate impact grounds (see Levin v Yeshiva Univ., 96 NY2d 484, 494-495 [2001]). Moreover, the same-sex partner of a biological parent can, through adoption, become a parent of the child (see Matter of Jacob, 86 NY2d 651, 669 [1995]). These judicial decisions and statutes express a public policy of acceptance that is simply not compatible with plaintiffs’ argument that the recognition in our state of same-sex marriages validly performed elsewhere is contrary to New York public policy.
In these related matters, the Westchester County Executive ordered that all county employees, boards and agencies should “recognize same sex marriages lawfully entered into outside the State of New York . . . for the purposes of extending and administering all rights and benefits belonging to these couples, to the maximum extent allowed by law.” (Westchester County Executive Order No. 3 of 2006.) The Department of Civil Service issued a policy memorandum announcing that the Department would recognize, as spouses, the parties to any same-sex marriage performed in jurisdictions where such marriage is legal. The challenges to these actions fall squarely within the purview of the marriage recognition rule and, because neither of the exceptions to that rule apply, I concur in the affirmance of the Appellate Division orders.
Judges Graffeo, Read and Smith concur with Judge Pigott; Judge Ciparick concurs in result in a separate opinion in which Chief Judge Lippman and Judge Jones concur.
In each case: Order affirmed, with costs.

. Indeed, as the state respondents note, a bill to adopt a mini-DOMA has been introduced at every legislative session since 1998, but not one has been reported out of committee. Bills introduced to authorize the performance of same-sex marriages, on the other hand, have twice passed in the Assembly (see 2009 NY Assembly Bill A7732 [delivered to Senate May 12, 2009], 2007 NY Assembly Bill A8590 [delivered to Senate June 19, 2007]).

. The federal Defense of Marriage Act provides, in effect, that the Full Faith and Credit Clause will not operate to require recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states (see 28 USC § 1738C). DOMA does not in any way diminish the principles of comity or the basis therefor.

. The time period most relevant to determining this State’s public policy is the present; our evolving standards of acceptance, rather than prior concepts of morality, are of the greatest concern (see e.g. Intercontinental Hotels Corp. [Puerto Rico] v Golden, 15 NY2d 9, 15 [1964] [examining the “trend in New York State” which demonstrated an increasing “acceptance of licensed gambling transactions as a morally acceptable activity”]).