Tenth anniversary of 2004 same-sex marriage ceremonies in New Paltz celebrates milestones

West spoke about the 19 misdemeanor counts he was charged with for marrying couples who, at the time, couldn’t obtain a marriage license. West was not charged for all of the ceremonies he performed because police only witnessed 19 of them. On June 10, 2004, the charges against West were dismissed. He said he was disappointed that no other mayors would follow suit and perform same-sex marriages, too. “I tried to convince more, but no one else was willing,” West said. “One person takes the most risk, two divides the risk in half… there was less risk with anybody else who joined in.”

But while the penalties that were on the table “sound very dramatic,” said West, “they were never going to happen. I actually wish they had sent me to jail, even for a night. Those headlines would have done more than anything else; ‘Mayor in Prison for Performing Matrimony’?”

When West was asked by a member of the audience whether he’s performed any marriages for gay — or straight — couples since the Marriage Equality Act took effect in New York, West quipped, deadpan, “I don’t discriminate. I’ll even marry straight people if I have to.”

After the laughter subsided, West said that in the first same-sex marriage he performed after the law took effect, it was the “normalcy of it” that struck him; a very simple ceremony of two people who’d already been together for many years. Dealing with all the attention and cameras back then to get to this point, he said, “was a pretty good trade, if you ask me.”

Mariko Hirose, attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union, was asked about the current state of affairs and the future for marriage equality. “The issue that’s being decided by courts right now is the issue of whether other states have to recognize the validity of marriages entered in states like New York,” Hirose said. “It’s an important question that very much affects New York couples, because all couples deserve the right to know that their families and their relationships are respected wherever they go. This issue is in several courts of appeal right now, and we expect that it’s going to end up back at the Supreme Court in the next few years.”

Cathy Marino-Thomas spoke of the challenges in her 17 years of activism for marriage equality. It’s been a process of “little baby steps at a time,” she said. “But we need to remind people that our Founding Fathers thought to make room for all people in the founding documents. I think that we need to reach out beyond gay people, to all Americans, and say, ‘Which way do you want it? Do you want a religious state or do you want a free state’?”

To those who bring religion into the matter of federal marriage equality, she said, “There’s a separation of church and state in this country. The churches in this country are exempt from taxation because they’re supposed to stay out of our government… so if you want to preach politics from the pulpit, get your tax bills ready and start writing checks.”

Jan Whitman said in her remarks that the events of 2004 led to New Paltz having its first Gay Pride march and festival the following year. After that, she said, the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center in Kingston was founded. “And having a community center in a place like Kingston, a small city that serves the rural counties around it, has been one of the stepping stones leading toward a larger acceptance of gay people as part of our daily lives,” said Whitman. “I think [having the center] has a great deal to do with the shift in how people feel about gay people and about gay marriage.”

Whitman told the story of a 61-year-old man who passed away a month ago, six months away from collecting Social Security. His partner, who would have been eligible to collect his benefits had they been allowed to marry, will not be able to do so. “The man who passed away was my brother,” said Whitman. “He and his partner had been together for 30 years. This is real people’s lives.”