The anti-gay marriage group New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms filed suit Monday to overturn New York’s marriage equality law, claiming that in the process of enacting the law, “constitutional liberties were violated.”
In the suit, NYCF said the State Senate violated procedures in the run-up to the vote on June 24, including holding meetings that violated New York State Open Meetings Laws, suspension of normal voting speakers to allegedly “prevent Senators who opposed the bill from speaking,” and “unprecedented Senate lock-outs by which lobbyists and the public were denied access to elected representatives.”
The suit also says that the group seeks “to preserve not only marriage as the union of one woman to one man, but also our constitutional liberties by acting as a check on an out-of-control political process that was willing to pass a bill regardless of how many laws and rules it violated.”
Rev. Jason J. McGuire, Executive Director of NYCF, said in a statement that “some of the players may have changed, but it looks like same old Albany game. It is time the curtain be pulled back and the disinfecting light of good government shine upon the Cuomo Administration and our State Legislature.”
A spokesman for Gov. Cuomo dismissed the lawsuit, saying it had no merit. “The plaintiffs lack a basic understanding of the laws of the state of New York,” Josh Vlasto told the City Room blog of the New York Times.
Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples have already been married since the law went into effect on Sunday.
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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