Paterson’s Swearing in Ceremony

In response to last week’s directive by New York’s Governor David A Paterson, an Arizona-based conservative Christian group, The Alliance Defense Fund, said it plans to sue the Governor to block the directive to state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside New York. 

Brian Raum, the senior legal counsel for the group, the Alliance Defense Fund, said that it would file a lawsuit next week claiming that Mr. Paterson’s order sidestepped the Legislature. “This is directly the province of the Legislature,” Mr. Raum said. “The Court of Appeals said marriage in New York is one man, one woman. And if that’s going to change, it has to come from the Legislature. What Paterson is doing is circumventing that process.”

The Governor’s directive is in strict compliance with an appellate court ruling in February that said New York must recognize same-sex marriages that have been performed outside the state.

On Friday, Senate Republicans in Albany were trying to decide how to respond to the governor’s directive. The majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican, said in a radio interview on Friday that he hoped to have an answer from his counsel by next week about whether they could take the governor to court. At the same time, Mr. Bruno conceded that any legislative action the Republican-led Senate might take would be largely symbolic because such a measure was almost certain to fail in the Assembly, which has supported same-sex marriage. The Assembly overwhelmingly passed a bill last summer to allow same-sex marriages, but Senate Republicans have refused to bring the bill to a vote.