From: Allison Cobb


to celebrate my birthday today, jen and i went down to the nyc city
hall to get "not married." we applied for a marriage license and were rejected, along with hundreds of others, i gather. we missed the morning rush, though, and got there at about noon, just when a Spanish speaking city councilor (a woman, I don't know her name) was on her way up to the clerk's office to ask for permission to marry queers. (she was wearing a collar). she was bureaucratically re-routed, of course, but said she would
persist and would, in the end, conduct marriage, even if she goes to jail. lots of Spanish-language press was there, and they took the opportunity to snap our picture as well--it was like paparazzi. i did a good job of smiling into each lense and announcing our "not married" status. the nypost took our picture (and will probably say something terribly bigoted about it all) so nyers look for us tomorrow. the idea is to take our official rejection letter (which is about 50 pages long, citing past case law) and add it as evidence to a class action lawsuit being filed by this civil rights attorney named norman siegel. mr. siegel is apparently very busy, however, since i can't get him on the phone. the rejection letter is very interesting. it cites merriam webster online, saying the meaning of the word "marriage" does include same-sex couples, but ONLY AS THE SECOND DEFINITION of the term. now if that ain't legal justification, i don't know what is.