D.C. Councilmember Adrian Fenty is the only Democratic mayoral candidate to announce his support for same-sex marriage in the District. The other four all claim to support full equality for gay couples, but don’t yet support marriage rights.
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LOU CHIBBARO, JR.
Friday, November 25, 2005
D.C. Councilmember Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4) has emerged as the only mayoral candidate so far to express full support for the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in the District.
Fenty, who is one of five Democratic contenders competing in the September 2006 mayoral primary, said he would consider pushing a gay marriage bill in the D.C. Council despite threats from members of Congress to step in to overturn such legislation.
Fenty’s position on gay marriage is in marked contrast to his chief rival, D.C. Council Chair Linda Cropp (D-At-Large), who has said she does not support gay marriage. Cropp said she supports providing same-sex couples with the same rights and benefits as marriage through civil unions or domestic partnership legislation.
Mayoral contender Michael Brown, a lobbyist and Democratic Party activist, took the same position as Cropp, saying he backs civil unions and would push for a civil unions bill “with a lot of teeth.”
Candidate Marie Johns, a former executive at the Verizon telecommunications company, said she believes the city needs “more strong, loving families” of all kinds but she is not yet ready to take a position on whether the city should legally recognize same-sex marriage.
“There are many layers to this issue that I need to study,” she said. “What I will be doing is relying on my friends who are gay and who are working on my campaign to advise me on this.”
D.C. Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-Ward 5), the remaining mayoral contender running in the 2006 primary, released a written statement saying legal recognition of same-sex marriage in D.C. would create “an immediate response from Congress that would be extremely detrimental to the achievements of the gay community.”
Orange added, “There is no consensus in the gay community on how to address Congress” on the gay marriage issue. He did not disclose whether he personally supports same-sex marriage recognition.
Johns, Cropp, Brown and Orange each said the threat of congressional intervention to overturn a D.C. gay marriage bill would be a key factor in the way they address the gay marriage question.
Fenty said he, too, would be mindful of possible congressional interference.
All five Democratic mayoral candidates have said they support legislation enacting into law the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Affairs created by District Mayor Anthony Williams last year by executive order.
The Council tabled a bill earlier this month calling for enacting the LGBT office into law. Gay D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who introduced the bill, said he would attempt to bring it back for reconsideration at the Council’s Dec. 6 session.
Cropp told the Blade last week that while she is not ready to embrace gay marriage in the District, she supports recognition of same-sex marriages issued in Massachusetts, where gay marriage was legalized last year.
On the question of same-sex marriage in the District, Cropp said she has not changed her position since she discussed the issue in a 2002 candidates questionnaire from the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance, when she ran for re-election as Council chair.
“Although I am not at the point where I would support the legal recognition of marriage between partners of the same sex, I remain open to explore the issue further,” Cropp stated on the GLAA questionnaire.
“I recognize the benefit to society of stable loving partnerships and will continue to seek ways to extend equal rights and benefits for same-sex couples,” Cropp wrote on the questionnaire.
Cropp did not elaborate on why she would support D.C. recognition of same-sex marriages from Massachusetts but does not favor a bill to legally recognize same-sex marriages for residents of the District.
The issue of recognition of gay marriages in Massachusetts surfaced last year when D.C. Attorney General Robert Spagnoletti prepared a legal memorandum for Mayor Williams on whether existing D.C. law would allow the city to recognize gay marriages from Massachusetts. Williams has declined to release the memo, saying he is concerned that it would trigger intervention by Congress to bar the city from passing a same-sex marriage bill in the future.
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| D.C. Council Chair Linda Cropp said she supports providing same-sex couples with the same rights and benefits as marriage through civil unions or domestic partnership legislation. (Photo by J. Scott Applewhite/AP) |
Williams’ decision to withhold the release of the memo has fueled speculation that the memo from Spagnoletti, who is gay, states that District law would allow the city to recognize same-sex marriages between couples that move to or visit D.C. from Massachusetts.
Cropp said she wants to assess whether she would release the Spagnoletti memo if she were to be elected mayor, saying she would determine what, if any, impact it would have on potential congressional interference in D.C. affairs.
Brown and Fenty said they would release the Spagnoletti memo immediately after becoming mayor.
Orange said he would release the Spagnoletti memo, while Johns said she would defer making a decision on the matter until she assessed the situation after taking office as mayor.
Williams has said he supports full legal recognition of same-sex marriage in principle and would move ahead with a gay marriage bill in D.C. as soon as it becomes clear that Congress would allow such legislation to remain in effect.
Williams told the Blade last year that he agrees with a strategy proposed by GLAA, a small but outspoken group of longtime local activists, that the city should hold off on introducing a gay marriage bill for the time being — until sentiment in the conservative-leaning Congress changes. GLAA also opposes the GLBT office, claiming it ghettoizes gay issues.
Like Cropp, Brown said he favors civil unions instead of gay marriage, saying he would push for a civil unions bill that would provide same-sex couples with the same benefits and rights as marriage.
“To me, it’s more semantics,” Brown said. “The important thing is to provide the same equal rights and benefits.”
The Human Rights Campaign and other gay groups have long argued that civil unions cannot carry all the rights and benefits of marriage because there’s no mechanism for other states to automatically recognize them, as there is for marriage.
Brown said a gay marriage bill in D.C. would almost certainly trigger a response by Congress to overturn it. He said he also fears Congress might pass legislation restricting or banning civil unions or domestic partnership benefits.
Asked if he supports same-sex marriage philosophically, aside from the question of congressional intervention, Brown said he would not go that far, saying he preferred the civil unions or domestic partnership approach.
Brown characterized his support for gay couples’ legal recognition as, “ a little further than Linda but short of Adrian.”
“My gay advisers — and I have quite a few of them — say the issue is equal rights. Anything that has to do with rights, I’m for it,” he said.
Orange and Johns have said they support gay civil rights in general and would enforce the city’s existing gay civil rights and domestic partnership laws. The two have yet to publicly state their position on same-sex marriage.
Orange did not return the GLAA candidates questionnaire when he ran for his Ward 5 Council seat in 2002. The questionnaire asked all candidates whether they personally support same-sex marriage.
GLAA gave Orange a rating of –1.5 on gay issues in a rating scale of –10 to +10. The group says that when candidates don’t return the questionnaire, it issues a rating of 0 unless it has information indicating a candidate has taken positions in support or opposition to gay issues.
GLAA spokesperson Rick Rosendall said the group docked points from Orange in 2002 because, among other things, he opposed legislation to lift a ban on allowing bars and nightclubs offering nude dancing to transfer their licenses to new locations. Had the bill lifting the ban on license transfers not passed, the gay and straight clubs offering nude dancing would be forced out of business if redevelopment — such as the building of a new baseball stadium — required them to leave their current locations.
Gay Democratic activist Kurt Vorndran, who supports Cropp for mayor, said he doesn’t believe most gay voters would view gay marriage as a critical issue in the 2006 mayoral election.
“We all know Congress would slap it down,” Vorndran said. “So this is a philosophical question about something that’s not going to come up in the near future in the District.”
Rosendall of GLAA disputes this assessment, saying all candidates for public office should take a stand on the issue, even if the Council is not expected to vote on it any time soon.
“We don’t give candidates a break on this because it’s not going to happen right now,” Rosendall said. “It’s not a philosophical question to our community.”
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