Same-sex marriage was a hot topic in '04. It looks to be that way next year, too.
"The emotional level was so high, you could see the ceiling of the courthouse rising by a foot." That's how Santa Fean Spence Pacheco described the day she and her same-sex partner of 24 years,
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Pat Tassett, got officially married, right here in New Mexico.
It all started Feb. 19, when Bernalillo County Clerk Victoria Dunlap, a Republican, announced she would begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The next day, more than 60 gay and lesbian couples received a license, and many were married right there on the steps of the courthouse.
Pacheco and Tassett were one of the few couples whose hasty nuptials were valid, if only for just a few hours.
Later that same day, New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid released an advisory letter stating the licenses-and thus the marriages-were invalid according to New Mexico law.
Dunlap's actions and her subsequent fight to continue issuing the licenses stirred up controversy and a heated legal battle between the clerk and Madrid's office, while inciting emotional responses on both sides of the issue.
Indeed, 2004 was a year in which gay issues of all sorts made national and local news. [Cover story, June 23: "Queer Here."]
Nationally, gay marriage was considered a factor in the presidential race and, around the country, ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage passed in all 11 states that had them. The initiatives came after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled nothing in that state's constitution restricts marriage between same-sex partners, making it the only state in which gay marriage licenses have not been invalidated (more than 4,000 licenses were issued in San Francisco, but were deemed invalid by the California Supreme Court).
As for New Mexico, the court wars continue, but Dunlap will be out of office at the end of the year (she was soundly defeated in a bid to win a County Commission seat and her term ends in January). However, as this year's New Mexico State Legislature session looms, so does the potential for new fireworks. According to gay, lesbian, bisexual
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and transgender activist groups, like the New Mexico Coalition for Equality, it's likely New Mexico Republicans will introduce a Defense of Marriage Act to specify marriage as between a man and a woman. GLBT activists will most likely counter by pushing for a bill allowing civil unions between same-sex couples.
Still, at this point, what happens next is difficult to gauge. "I really have not heard anything on this issue," says State Rep. Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), who supports both civil unions and same-sex marriage. "I'm not sure where it's gonna go."
According to Linda Siegle, a lobbyist for the New Mexico Coalition for Equality, it will most likely go with the passage of both a DOMA and a civil union law [SFR Talk, Nov. 24: "Heart and Mind"]. Further, she says, civil union rights might be a good compromise for a state that, according to polls, is not quite ready for gay marriage. "Marriage in this country is not and has never been a religious institution. It's a civil institution. And all the people who are gay are looking for is that same ability to get that civil contract," she says.
Pacheco agrees that "there is such a backlash against us that I think all of us are of the mind we need to try to get whatever we can at this point." Still, she says, "the point of marriage is to acknowledge to the public who we are to each other. And we've already done that."
