D.C. marriage law poised to take effect

The Washington Blade
June 26, 2009
Attorneys for a minister seeking a voter referendum to overturn the District’s same-sex marriage recognition law are asking a D.C. judge to issue an injunction to suspend the July 6 deadline for meeting all the referendum’s requirements, including the submission of 21,000 valid petition signatures. Attorneys representing the city and a local gay rights group voiced strong objections to postponing the referendum deadline and vowed to file strongly worded motions opposing any stay order. Gay rights attorney, Mark Levine, called the request for a stay of the referendum deadline an unprecedented development that, if approved by the court, would overturn a key provision the city’s referendum law, which was approved by the D.C. City Council in the late 1970s and cleared by Congress. “Unlike other parties to this litigation, the city residents being targeted by the referendum consist of married couples, some with children, whose lives and families are affected by whether or not their marriages are legally recognized,” Levine said in a motion. “Those lives will be affected if the proponents get their way and enshrine them as de jure second-class citizens of the District of Columbia.” [Link]