Mayor recognises gay marriages

2004-03-09 06:46

Seattle, Washington - The mayor of the liberal US city of Seattle announced that the city would officially recognise the same-sex marriages of its employees.

Mayor Greg Nickels on Monday issued an executive under which Seattle will fully recognise gay marriages sealed by city workers in places such as San Francisco and Oregon's Multnomah County, which have begun marrying same-sex couples in defiance of state laws banning the practice.

"Seattle has often been at the forefront of protecting all its citizens, regardless of sexual orientation," Nickels said.

The order would expand the city's anti-discrimination laws to protect gay and lesbian couples who marry in places such as Canada - where same-sex marriage is legal in some provinces - San Francisco, Multnomah County or in two New York state cities where officials have defied the law by marrying gay couples.

Nickels also proposed a city ordinance that would extend existing legal protections for gay married couples.

Discrimination

The proposal, which has still to be adopted by the city council, would ban discrimination on the basis of marital status, giving same-sex married couples equal protection from bias in employment, housing or the use of city facilities.

It would require all businesses with city contracts to treat their gay married employees in the same way it does heterosexual married workers.

Nickels' actions are, however, largely symbolic moves.

Seattle laws already outlaw discrimination in housing, employment or public services based on a person's sexual orientation or marital status.

And gay and lesbian city employees have been eligible for full domestic partnership benefits since 1989.

But the new order redefines "marital status" to include same-sex married couples and allows same-sex couples to simply say they are married and not require them to fill out paperwork to prove the relationship.

Meanwhile, six gay couples from the Seattle area filed a lawsuit on Monday after applying for marriage licences at the King County administration building in Seattle, where the area's marriage licences are issued.

The couples, some with children in arms, were greeted at the door of the office by county executive Ron Sims, who said he supported their right to marry, but had no choice but to uphold the state law forbidding issuing licenses to partners of the same sex.

They were then rejected by officials citing a 1998 Washington law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Sims, at a later news conference, likened the state's ban on gay marriages to anti-miscegenation laws that banned interracial marriages in some states until the late 1960s.

"We should never tell people who love each other, who have entered into a relationship soberly, people who will function for the rest of their lives as one ... who will raise children - we should never deny those individuals the right to be married. But we do," Sims said.

- AFP