Justice Dept. to Continue Policy Against Same-Sex Marriage

After two instances in which deportations were suspended in immigration cases involving same-sex couples, the Justice Department has cautioned that it will continue to enforce a law that bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

A Justice Department official said Saturday that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had made no change in the administration’s approach to the law, the Defense of Marriage Act, suggesting that deportations could continue in other immigration cases involving married gay couples.

On Friday, an immigration judge in Newark suspended the deportation of Henry Velandia, a Venezuelan man who was legally married last year in Connecticut to an American citizen, Josh Vandiver. The judge cited an unusual action by Mr. Holder in a different case.

On Thursday, Mr. Holder postponed the deportation of an Irish immigrant involved in a same-sex union, sending the case back to the immigration appeals court. The Irish man, Paul Wilson Dorman, was joined in a civil union in 2009 with an American citizen in New Jersey.

The Board of Immigration Appeals had denied Mr. Dorman residency, citing the Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA. Among other issues, Mr. Holder asked the appeals court to consider whether the civil union might qualify Mr. Dorman as a spouse eligible for residency.

Tracy Schmaler, a spokeswoman for Mr. Holder, said he had interceded in Mr. Dorman’s case only because he wanted the immigration appeals court to decide issues he felt had been overlooked. “As we have made clear, we will continue to enforce DOMA,” Ms. Schmaler said.

In February, Mr. Holder announced that the administration viewed the marriage act as unconstitutional and would not defend it in the courts, although the administration would continue to enforce the law.

Gay rights advocates have asked the administration to postpone all deportations for same-sex married couples until the courts decide whether the marriage act is constitutional. Under immigration law, an American citizen can petition for legal residency for a spouse, if the spouse is not the same sex.

 

Judge Gives Immigrant in Same-Sex Marriage a Reprieve From Deportation

The Venezuelan, Henry Velandia, had been awaiting the hearing with dread, since immigration authorities had said it was the last step before his deportation. Mr. Velandia, a dancer, was legally married last year in Connecticut to Josh Vandiver, a graduate student at Princeton. Mr. Velandia was denied legal residency as Mr. Vandiver’s spouse because under a federal law, the Defense of Marriage Act, immigration authorities do not recognize same-sex marriage.

On Thursday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. intervened in a different immigration case involving a same-sex couple, suspending the deportation of a man from Ireland and sending his case back to the immigration appeals court, asking it to consider several possible grounds on which the Irishman might qualify for legal residency.

Citing the move by the attorney general, Judge Alberto J. Riefkohl of immigration court in Newark postponed Mr. Velandia’s deportation until December at the earliest. The judge said he wanted to allow time for the attorney general and the appeals court to work out whether a gay partner might be eligible under some circumstances for residency.

Gay rights advocates said the back-to-back developments were an important sign that the Obama administration was working to bring consistency to its policy on same-sex marriage. The administration determined in February that the Defense of Marriage Act discriminates unconstitutionally against gay people.

Mr. Holder said then that the administration would no longer defend the act, also known as DOMA, in the courts, but would continue to enforce it until the courts reached a decision on whether it was constitutional.

Rachel B. Tiven, the executive director of Immigration Equality, a legal group that advocates for gay immigrants, said the change of course in the two cases had sent “a signal of openness” from the administration.

“Something is shifting and opening, and change is on the horizon,” Ms. Tiven said.

Supporters of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage for the purposes of federal law as between a man and a woman, reacted strongly to Mr. Holder’s action.

Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the Republican who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the attorney general had “instructed an immigration court to ignore DOMA in future rulings.”

Mr. Smith said the administration was “coming dangerously close to giving the impression they don’t care what the law says.”

In Newark, Mr. Velandia and Mr. Vandiver were mainly relieved that they had avoided separation. “We know this is just a reprieve,” Mr. Vandiver said. “But every day we can have together is invaluable.”

Mr. Velandia, 27, is a salsa dancer who came to the United States in 2002 and failed in his effort to gain an employment visa. He has become a poster case for gay immigrants across the country, as he and Mr. Vandiver, 29, gathered thousands of signatures on an online petition asking Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, to suspend deportations for all same-sex spouses.

Before the hearing, dozens of gay protesters demonstrated on the sidewalk in front of the federal building in Newark where the immigration court is housed.

Judge Riefkohl noted in the hearing that Mr. Velandia and Mr. Vandiver were a married couple, and he said he wanted to wait for the outcome of the immigration appeals court’s reconsideration of the case of the Irish immigrant.

“We won the victory we were looking for,” said Lavi Soloway, the lawyer for Mr. Velandia and Mr. Vandiver. “The government acknowledged that Henry’s removal was no longer a foregone conclusion.”

The Irishman, Paul Wilson Dorman, came to the United States in 1996 and stayed beyond the term of his visa. But in a potentially important wrinkle, Mr. Dorman joined with an American citizen in June 2009 in a civil union — not a marriage — in New Jersey. That state does not offer same-sex marriage.

His lawyer, Nicholas J. Mundy, said the courts had denied his partner’s petition for a permanent resident visa for Mr. Dorman. But Mr. Holder asked the immigration appeals court to re-examine the case to determine whether Mr. Dorman might qualify for the visa by virtue of his civil union.

Mr. Mundy said he was optimistic about the significance for gay immigrants of Mr. Holder’s action. “It is an extraordinary measure,” he said, “and it sends a clear message that the Obama administration intends to do away with DOMA in its entirety.”

Ms. Tiven, of Immigration Equality, was more cautious. “This is not yet the solution that thousands of families clearly need,” she said.

View the original article here

Week in Review: A Tipping Point for Gay Marriage?

Yet that is just what King & Spalding, a venerable Atlanta firm, did last week. Under pressure from gay rights groups and apparently fearful of criticism from the law students it recruits and the corporate clients it serves, the firm said it would not defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act against a challenge that it violates the Constitution.

The episode has so far mostly been discussed as a matter of legal ethics, and the firm has had a rough ride. But there is something larger going on, too.

For many gay rights advocates, the decision amounts to a turning point in the debate — the moment at which opposition to same-sex marriage came to look like bigotry, similar to racial discrimination and the subordination of women.

To opponents of same-sex marriage, the firm’s decision is the latest evidence that elite opinion generally and the legal culture in particular is racing ahead of popular opinion and shutting down a worthwhile debate.

“There is a big gap between elites and everyone else” over same-sex marriage, said Maggie Gallagher, the president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, which supports traditional marriage. The polls and political science literature support her: What may be orthodoxy in faculty lounges remains an open question among the public at large.

Another critic of same-sex marriage said King & Spalding’s decision illustrated just how wide the divide between elite and mass opinion on same-sex marriage has become. “There is no doubting that the default position of the American academy is to dismantle the institution of marriage and remake it on a new basis,” Matthew J. Franck of the Witherspoon Institute, a conservative research group, wrote in a blog post on Friday. “The deadly combination of unchallenged liberal presumptions and casual intimidation of dissenters is probably at its worst in the most prestigious universities, which set the tone for the rest of the country, on this issue as on many others.”

Ms. Gallagher sounded bitter and besieged as she described how the nature if not the substance of the debate had shifted. “Either you’re with them or you’re a hater,” she said of gay rights advocates. “They’re trying to exclude you from the public square.”

Evan Wolfson, the president of Freedom to Marry, said he welcomed a conversation, but the arguments against same-sex marriage were so empty that they were not worthy of respect. “If you know that the only arguments that can be made for a position are discriminatory and harmful to real people,” he said, “you should think about whether you should make them.”

This latest skirmish in the culture war over marriage was prompted by the Obama administration’s decision in February that it would no longer defend in court the part of the Defense of Marriage Act that denies federal benefits to gay and lesbian couples married in states that recognize such unions. That decision was itself unusual and thus telling.

But it was only one indication of how quickly the battle lines are moving. In 2008, a federal judge in New York ruled that it was defamatory to call a straight man gay. Ten months later, a different judge of the same court, relying on what he called “a veritable sea change in social attitudes about homosexuality,” said there was no longer “a widespread view of gays and lesbians as contemptible and disgraceful.”

The second judge, Denny Chin, drew a comparison. In 1926, he said, New York’s highest court ruled that it was libelous to call a white man “colored” or “Negro.” Such rulings were common in much of the nation in the first half of the last century; they are unimaginable today in any state. The range of views that may be expressed in respectable circles can be a bellwether in judging what society is ready for, said David A. Bositis, an analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies who has studied the politics of race.

“Part of the evolution of equality obviously includes moving from where statements are viewed as normal and accepted to being socially undesirable,” he said. “When some turning points in these struggles are reached, it becomes more and more unsavory to behave in some ways and take certain positions. In polite society, it’s no longer considered acceptable to make overtly racist statements.

“But in the case of gay rights,” he added, “those turning points still have a ways to go. I certainly can see that day coming. Compared with the civil rights movement for African-Americans, the movement for gay rights has proceeded with a remarkable degree of speed.”

 

Law Firm Won’t Defend Marriage Act

Gay rights groups had fiercely criticized the law firm, the 126-year-old King & Spalding of Atlanta, saying that its agreement to defend the law, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages, would hurt its ability to recruit and retain lawyers. The firm’s chairman, Robert D. Hays Jr., said in a statement Monday morning that the firm would no longer defend the law.

“In reviewing this assignment further, I determined that the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate,” he said. “Ultimately I am responsible for any mistakes that occurred and apologize for the challenges this may have created.”

The firm’s abrupt reversal highlights the continuing potency of same-sex marriage as a complicated issue that has scrambled traditional political calculations in Washington. President Obama has often called the marriage act “abhorrent,” but his Justice Department defended it for more than a year before declaring it unconstitutional. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced in February that the administration would no longer defend the act in court.

Theodore B. Olson, a solicitor general under President George W. Bush, has joined gay rights groups and Democrats as a leading advocate for same-sex marriage. And several high-profile Republicans, including Mr. Bush’s wife and his daughter Barbara, have said publicly that they support gay people’s right to marry. But House Republicans, led by Speaker John A. Boehner, have vowed to defend the law in court.

Paul D. Clement, another solicitor general under Mr. Bush and the King & Spalding lawyer hired to lead the Republican case, resigned after his firm’s decision to withdraw. In a letter, Mr. Clement said the firm had a duty to resist pressure and complete the job for which it was hired.

“I resign out of the firmly held belief that a representation should not be abandoned because the client’s legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters,” he wrote. “Defending unpopular clients is what lawyers do. I recognized from the outset that this statute implicates very sensitive issues that prompt strong views on both sides. But having undertaken the representation, I believe there is no honorable course for me but to complete it.”

Mr. Clement wrote that his personal opinions about the marriage act were irrelevant — and he did not indicate what they were. But he said he intended to represent the House in its defense of the law as a partner at Bancroft P.L.L.C., his new employer.

King & Spalding, founded in 1885, is one of the nation’s largest and most successful law firms, with offices around the world. American Lawyer magazine ranks it as the nation’s 34th-largest, measured by gross revenue.

Griffin B. Bell, who was attorney general in the Carter administration, was managing partner at the firm. Its partners have included Senator Dan Coats, Republican of Indiana, and two former senators, ?Sam Nunn,? a Georgia Democrat, and Connie Mack, a?Florida Republican.?The firm? represents the top ranks of corporate America, including General Motors, Google and? Wal-Mart, and it has had a long relationship with the Coca-Cola Company.

The firm has been the subject of criticism before. A sex discrimination case against it in the 1980s went to the Supreme Court before eventually being settled. ?

It remains unclear why the leadership of King & Spalding chose to withdraw from the contract to defend the constitutionality of the marriage act, which would have paid the firm up to $500,000 for its services, at a rate of $520 per hour.

The statement from Mr. Hays did not cite pressure from gay advocacy groups as a reason for the change. His stated reason — that the approval process for taking on the assignment was inadequate — could refer to a clause in the contract with House Republicans that prohibited the firm’s lawyers from any advocacy for or against bills that would change or repeal the marriage act.

Legal experts said that clause is broader than most restrictions in contracts and could have severely limited the activities of the firm’s partners and employees.

“It would be one thing for the lawyers to agree not to pursue litigation on the other side of the matter,” said Andrew M. Perlman, a law professor at Suffolk University in Boston and an expert on legal ethics. “But this would have prohibited any lawyer in the firm from even writing a letter criticizing the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Gay rights groups claimed victory, saying their criticism of the firm had its intended effect.

Richard Socarides, the president of Equality Matters, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, said Monday: “Mr. Clement’s statement misses the point entirely. While it is sometimes appropriate for lawyers to represent unpopular clients when a important principle is at issue, here the only principle he wishes to defend is discrimination and second-class citizenship for gay Americans.”

But Stephen Gillers, an expert in legal ethics at the New York University law school, said the firm caved in, adding that the “firm’s timidity here will hurt weak clients, poor clients and despised clients.”

In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, Brendan Buck, said: “The speaker is disappointed in the firm’s decision and its careless disregard for its responsibilities to the House in this constitutional matter. At the same time, Mr. Clement has demonstrated legal integrity, and we are grateful for his decision to continue representing the House.”

Democrats, including Representative Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader, have criticized Mr. Boehner for seeking public funds to defend the law. A spokesman for Ms. Pelosi said in a statement that she “vigorously opposes” using “any taxpayer resources to defend discrimination, at a time when Republicans in Congress are cutting critical initiatives like education and infrastructure.”

Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, and John Schwartz from New York.

 

Church 'sham marriage' crackdown

 12 April 2011 Last updated at 05:03 ET  Rev Brown married hundreds of African men to Eastern European women to help them stay in UK The Church of England is to issue new guidance to clergy in an attempt to reduce the number of sham marriages.

In future, couples will have to apply for a licence if either the bride or groom is from a non-European country.

Members of the clergy are also being urged to report any suspicions they have that the marriage is not genuine.

Over the past nine months, 155 people have been arrested in the UK as a result of investigations into both church and civil ceremonies.

The new guidance advises clergy not to publish banns - where a couple's intention to marry is read out in church - for marriages involving a man or a woman from a non-European country.

Instead, it says couples should apply for a "common licence", which involves the swearing of affidavits and classes.

The guidance issued by the House of Bishops - one of three houses in the General Synod - has UK Border Agency agreement.

It says if a member of the clergy is not satisfied that the marriage is genuine, he or she must make that clear to the person responsible for granting the licence.

Clergy should "immediately" report a couple to diocesan legal officers if they insist on having banns read rather than applying for a common licence under the guidance.

'Right direction'

The Church said clergy who refuse to conduct a wedding as a result of the guidance would not be considered guilty of misconduct.

Continue reading the main story

It's very difficult for a priest some times to say no to people when you feel intimidated”

End Quote Reverend Tim Codling CofE vicar Vicars have also been urged to contact the police immediately should they feel they are being threatened or pressured to carry out a marriage.

The Right Reverend John Packer, Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, said: "The House of Bishops is clear that the office of holy matrimony must not be misused by those who have no intention of contracting a genuine marriage.

"The purpose of this guidance and direction from the bishops to the clergy and to those responsible for the grant of common licences is, therefore, to prevent the contracting of sham marriages in the Church of England," he said.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said while the exact numbers were not known, "some clergy, in some parishes in cities" were being asked on a "fairly frequently basis" to conduct suspected sham marriages.

The new rules would protect the clergy from being "conned" and those couples who were "genuinely seeking marriage", he added.

Reverend Tim Codling had to call in the police and immigration officials after his church - St John the Baptist CoE in Tilbury, Essex - was targeted by a Nigerian gang from 2007.

He said it was a "production line", with the number of weddings tripling from 10 to 30 a year.

"It's very difficult for a priest sometimes to say no to people when you feel intimidated," he said. "I felt threatened on many occasions."

Father Codling told BBC Panorama's My Big Fat Fake Wedding programme that the sham marriages were the work of crime gangs involved in prostitution, drugs, money laundering and people trafficking.

In some cases, he added, the fake brides were "absolutely frightened".

Loopholes

Immigration minister Damian Green, who has backed the guidance, said the UK Border Agency already worked "very closely" with the Church to investigate and disrupt suspected sham weddings but the new advice was "another step in the right direction".

"Increasing enforcement action has resulted in 155 arrests across the country, and would-be fraudsters should remember that a marriage itself does not equal an automatic right to remain in the UK," he said.

Criminal gangs behind sham marriages had in the past exploited the ease with which the Church would marry people, he said.

But the new guidance made it necessary for vicars to take action, and removed easily exploitable "loopholes", he added.

Last September the Reverend Alex Brown, 61, was jailed for four years for his part in a sham marriage fraud which helped hundreds of illegal immigrants stay in Britain.

He abused his position to marry hundreds of African men to Eastern European women at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.

A Church of England spokesman said no more than a "handful" of clergy were currently suspended pending police investigations into alleged sham marriages.

"The vast majority of the 155 arrests mentioned by the immigration minister are of couples and their facilitators," he said.