Washington D.C. Elections Board Holds Hearing Challenge to Gay Marriage Law

06/11/09 Washington Post:

The battle over same-sex marriage in the District moved to the city election board yesterday as supporters and opponents packed into a hearing room to debate whether the city should put the issue on the ballot.

ADF attorney Brian Raum, the Washington Post reports, testified that, under his interpretation of a 1995 ruling, the referendum does not violate the District's Human Rights Act.

06/10/09 Washington Post D.C. Wire (source: Gay Marriage Watch):

The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics held a hearing today on "whether the City Council bill to recognize same-sex marriages performed in others states can be put to a referendum ... A decision will likely come Friday, or early next week, but the board appeared sympathetic to the gay community's argument that a referendum would be a violation of elections law because of the the Human Rights Act."

06/10/09 Washington City Paper City Desk Blog (source: ADF Alliance Alert):

ADF Senior Counsel Brian Raum cited

two cases supporting his contention that District human rights law does not apply to the marriage-recognition law. One was a New York state decision; the other was the landmark Dean v. D.C. case, which the D.C. Court of Appeals handed down in 1995 [Dean v. District of Columbia, 653 A.2d 307 (D.C. App. 1995)]. That decision ... ruled that D.C.’s gender-neutral marriage statute in itself did not allow the city to issue gay marriage licenses.

06/11/09 Washington Post:

Raum, the Washington Post reports, testified that, under his interpretation of the 1995 Dean ruling, the referendum does not violate the District's Human Rights Act.

06/11/09 American Prospect Tapped Blog (source: ADF Alliance Alert):

Mark Levine, (lawyer and radio host) who was there on behalf of the Gertrude Stein Club, argued that the [Dean] court at the time was exercising judicial restraint by simply saying that only the City Council, rather than the courts, could legalize same-sex marriage. Levine also points out that it made sense for the court to rule that restricting marriage in 1995 wasn't discrimination, because there were no gay couples to discriminate against. So while the referendum might have been legal prior to other states accepting gay marriage, it no longer would be.