11、No, but maybe yes
Feb 10th 2005 | NEW YORK From The Economist print edition
The city’s mayor goes deliberately ambivalent
LAST year San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom began handing out marriage licences to any gay couple who wanted one, only to find himself in a mess when California’s courts ruled that the licences had no legal validity. Now New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken the opposite line. The Republican mayor is appealing against a lower court’s decision allowing the city clerk to issue marriage licences to homosexuals (this contradicted two recent court decisions elsewhere in the state) while at the same time promising to push for a change in New York’s laws.
This has brought predictable snorts from his opponents. The city council’s Democratic speaker (and would-be mayor), Gifford Miller, has joined the crowd calling the mayor a coward. Another Democrat, Fernando Ferrer, Mr Bloomberg’s most serious rival in the next election, calls him “opportunistic”. And a fellow Republican, Thomas Ognibene, who would also like the mayor’s job, has called him “spineless”.
Legal recognition of a marriage has many practical consequences in America. There are, according to one gay-rights group, 1,100 federal benefits directly tied to marriage, to say nothing of hundreds more provided by states and private employers, as well as rights connected with inheritance and insurance coverage. All this adds to the homosexuals’ argument for recognition of their marriages.
If the case now goes directly to the state’s highest court, there will either be a full judicial endorsement of gay marriage, which Mr Bloomberg would endorse, or (more likely) the opposite. At present the state’s law, as the plaintiffs acknowledge, is quite clear in not permitting same-sex marriage. However, in ruling in favour of five couples who last summer demanded marriage licences from the city clerk’s office, the lower court said the law was unconstitutional on two grounds: failure to provide equal protection (by treating people differently because of their sexual orientation); and failure to provide due process (by failing to allow people the right of privacy to arrange their marriage free of unjustified government interference).
These arguments touch on difficult areas of law, and so far have arisen primarily in abortion and sodomy cases; the results have left neither side really happy. The Bloomberg approach, if successful, might ultimately encourage an endorsement of gay marriage to come about through the legislature, by a change of law backed by political will and public opinion. That will not be easy to achieve. Only a third of the people in New York state, on the evidence of current opinion polls, are in favour of gay marriage.
11、去年旧金山市市长Gavin Newsom开始给同性恋伴侣们发结婚证，结果只是自寻烦恼，加利福尼亚州法院判定其发出的结婚证不具有法律效力。如今纽约市市长Michael Bloomberg则采取了相反的方式。身为共和党人的他，正在对初等法院的判决提起诉讼，即允许该市公务员给同性恋伴侣发放结婚证的判决(这相互矛盾的两个判决是该州其他城市法院最新的判决)，同时还承诺推动纽约的法律变革。
这自然是引来了他的政敌们一片嘘声。纽约市民主党参议员(新市长的有力竞争者)，Grifford Miller已经参与声讨市长是个胆小鬼。另外一个民主党人，Mr Bloomberg 下届选举中最有力的对手Fernando Ferrer更是称他为机会主义者。而他的共和党同僚、同样也对市长的职位垂涎三尺的Thomas Ognibene，则指责他胆小怕事、毫无骨气。
婚姻的法律定义在美国可以有很多种实践结果。据一个同性恋组织声称，有1100种联邦利益与婚姻密切相关，更不用说数以百计州立和私立雇主，以及与继承和保险责任相关的其他权利。这些都加入到了同性恋为其婚姻的合法认可的争论中来。
如果这一案件现在直接上诉到州最高法院，将会出现要么是像Mr Bloomberg认为的给同性恋婚姻一个完全的司法认可，要么就是相反(这一种可能性更大)。正如原告已经知道的，现在的州法律在不允许同性婚姻方面是非常清楚的。然而，在处理去年夏天5对伴侣向纽约市政办公人员要求发放结婚证一案中，初等法院认为，这一法律在两方面有违宪法：没有提供平等的保护(对不同性取向的人区别对待);没有提供正当程序(没有给人们隐私权自主安排其婚姻，不受是非不明的政府干涉)。
这些争论触及了法律的难点，迄今为止主要出现在堕胎和鸡奸案件中;结果是，没有任何一方取得了满意的结果。如果Bloomberg的方法能够成功，政治意愿和公众舆论支持下的法律变革将可能从根本上推动同性婚姻法律制度问题峰回路转。这可不容易成功。根据最新的民意调查，纽约州仅有1/3的人同意同性婚姻。
如果您需要翻译，请拨打400 688 3621或者发邮件至alice.han@translationinchina.com,或访问至尚翻译公司网址：http://www.translationinchina.com
Should you need our service, please feel free to call 400 688 3621 or send email to:alice.han@translationinchina.com or visit SIS Shanghai Translation Company Website http://www.translationinchina.com