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Uneasy times for LI same-sex couples married in Calif.

BY SUSANA ENRIQUEZ | susana.enriquez@newsday.com

November 14, 2008

Dan Pinello and Lee Nissensohn hope their California marriage license doesn't become a collector's item.

The gay couple from East Hills wed in San Francisco Sept. 9 and have been in a state of uncertainty since the Nov. 4 passage of Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that would change the state's constitution to restrict marriage to a man and a woman.

While the proposition is mired in legal challenges, the question remains whether the change would invalidate the thousands of same-sex marriages performed there since California legalized such marriages June 17. And the prospect lingers that New York would not recognize a marriage that is no longer valid in the state where it was performed.

"It's extraordinarily frustrating," said Pinello, 58. "We are in legal limbo."

-Click here to see photos from Proposition 8 protests

In a statement Wednesday, California Attorney General Jerry Brown said that he would defend the validity of the marriages, as well as the proposition that the majority of voters approved.

"It is my belief that the courts will hold that these same-sex marriages entered into are valid," the statement said.

Legal experts, meanwhile, said they weren't so sure.

Kenji Yoshino, a law professor at New York University who focuses on constitutional and civil rights law, said California was entering uncharted legal territory.

Yoshino said the likely scenario is that the Golden State would continue to consider existing marriages valid - but other scenarios are possible, including that marriages wouldn't be valid anywhere or would be valid in states other than California.

"The dominant opinion appears to be that couples have nothing to worry about," he said. "I'm cautiously optimistic."

If a court upholds Proposition 8 and nullifies previous marriages, New York would no longer recognize them, said Errol Cockfield, a spokesman for Gov. David A. Paterson.

Some same-sex couples have said they've considered marrying again in either Massachusetts or Connecticut. But officials in both states said they will only marry unmarried couples, whether they're of the same sex or not.

Jeffrey Friedman, 40, of Rockville Centre, said since the validity of his Oct. 12 marriage to Andrew Zwerin in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., is in question, they should be allowed to marry again in Massachusetts - as they had been planning.

Friedman said he has a valid legal argument to marry in another state "until someone can tell me that I'm definitively married in California."

Both couples said they were struck by the timing of such discordant events: the election of the nation's first black president even as California stripped gay couples of their rights.

"In one day the walls of prejudice and intolerance came tumbling down with the election of Barack Obama," said Pinello. "But on the same day, another wall of prejudice and injustice was reinforced."

Friedman said the struggle for marriage equality is a matter of educating the public.

"We need to change the hearts and minds of people to show them we are no different," he said. "I think if people met us they would really get it."

-Click here to see photos from Proposition 8 protests