New York Same-Sex Couples Will Enjoy "The Amtrak Option"

Last week, Massachusetts repealed a century-old law preventing out-of-state residents from marrying there if their home states would not recognize the union. Same=sex couples in the state of New York can directly benefit from that.

From the New York Times:

While some New Yorkers have flown across the country to marry in California since May, when that state became the nation’s second to approve same-sex marriage, gay-rights advocates expect many more to do the same in Massachusetts, since it is so much closer.

“We call it the Amtrak option, as opposed to the Jet Blue option,” said Cathy Renna, a communications consultant to gay and lesbian organizations.
Alan Van Capelle, executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda, a leading gay-rights group, said, “I think this is an incredible opportunity for same-sex New York couples who are hungry for some of the 1,324 rights and responsibilities married couples receive to obtain them.”

Governor Paterson’s decision placed New York alongside Rhode Island and New Mexico in recognizing same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts, according to a Boston-based advocacy group, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders.

A June memo from the Massachusetts Office of Housing and Economic Development estimated that 21,000 gay couples from New York might go there to marry if the state allowed. That is about 43 percent of the estimated 49,000 same-sex couples in New York. About 9,600 same-sex couples from Massachusetts married in the first three years after the state legalized such unions in 2004.

With Governor Paterson’s blessing, New Yorkers who get married in Massachusetts — or Canada or California — will be eligible for a host of benefits that they cannot receive now, according to Mr. Van Capelle of the Pride Agenda. Firefighters and police officers in particular have a lot to gain, because the state gives significant benefits to the spouses of emergency workers killed in the line of duty.

Another step toward equality. Click here to read the rest of the story.