The future of gay couples married in the meantime
By Mary Wiltenburg | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
More than 3,500 gay couples have now been married in the United States, and numbers are rising fast - two dozen in New York last Friday, 26 in New Mexico Feb. 20, over 200 per day in San Francisco since Feb. 12, and more to come in Massachusetts after the state Supreme Judicial Court's May 17 deadline.
These weddings are the subject of fierce state and federal legal battles: New Mexico's attorney general found her state's licenses "invalid under state law" the day they were performed; on Friday both California's Supreme Court and New York's attorney general declined to do the same. Iowa and 13 other states now seek to amend their Constitutions to ban gay unions. The Massachusetts legislature will reconvene March 11 to consider proposed amendments; last week President Bush announced his support for a federal ban.

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Dennis Duggan
Time to take a stand on same-sex marriages

First there was San Francisco, then New Paltz and now, perhaps New York City, where City Council Speaker Gifford Miller is challenging one and all on same-sex marriage, an issue that has a lot of pols twisting in the wind.

"There are moments in history where people either have to stand up or decide that they will not," said Miller, who is standing up for same-sex marriages.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to sit down, saying that such marriages are for the state to settle. Nevertheless, about 50 gay and lesbian couples plan to apply for marriage licenses Thursday at the city clerk's office.