Mayor Jason West greets the crowd
gathered to celebrate the
only wedding ceremonies he performed.

What should an elected official do when the oath of office to uphold the laws for all the people conflicts with the interpretation of a law by state and county district attorneys? Should the official go to court and get permission from a judge to uphold that oath of office? Should the official lobby the state legislatures to change the law?

Or, should the elected official abide solely by the oath of office in full faith that the laws will be equally and unconditionally applied to all people?

That was the dilemma Mayor Jason West faced when Billiam Van Roestenberg and Jeff McGowan asked him to solemnize marriages for gay and lesbian couples. West decided to uphold his oath of office, even though Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams and New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said he would be breaking the law if he conducted ceremonies for people who did not have marriage licenses.

West said that Article 3, Section 25 of the New York State Domestic Relations Law did allow for marriages to be conducted without licenses.

Standing on a podium in Peace Park on Feb. 27, West told the worldwide edia and over 400 people gathered for the ceremonies that he was “prepared to fight any legal battle” if necessary.

The legal battle was necessary as West was charged with violating the law by DA Williams. Then a restraining order was issued by New York Justice Vincent Bradley after New Paltz Village Trustee Robert Hebel hired Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based antigay law firm to stop West from upholding his oath of office.

That's what West's attorney, Joshua Rosenkranz, told State Supreme Court Justice Michael Kavanagh of Ulster County on Monday, May 17.

That day, lesbian and gay New Yorkers drove to Massachusetts to get married, since Spitzer said New York would recognize these marriages. They were able to marry in Massachusetts because that state's Supreme Court ruled that there was no compelling reason for the state to bar same-sex couples from marrying.

Justice Kavanagh asked Liberty Counsel senior attorney Rena Lindevaldsen what compelling reason New York would have to prevent these marriages. She was not prepared to argue the constitutionality of the restraining order. First, she insisted that the marriages could only take place if a license was issued.

Then she argued marriage case law, based on the premise that gay men and lesbians were not considered a protected class under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Since those cases, however, the United States Supreme Court
changed that precedent in 2004, ruling in Lawrence v. Texas that the Fourteenth Amendment applied equally to everyone.

New York State legislators passed the Same-Sex Nondiscrimination Act (SONDA) in 2003, protecting the rights of gay men and lesbian New Yorkers.

Justice Kavanagh's concern was the precedent West set when he decided to conduct these marriage ceremonies, by allegedly breaking the law. He called the precedent “dangerous.”

West's attorneys argued that the mayor was obliged to follow his constitutional oath, which had a long tradition in American history. Rosenkranz said the marriage license as a requirement for a marriage ceremony was “no more valid than the Jim Crow law,” which was used to stop African-Americans from voting.

The judge asked if the mayor had the right to impose his own standard. West's attorney argued that he had an obligation first to uphold his oath of office for all the people. The courts were the place to decide if the law was unconstitutional. Until that time, though, Mayor West does not need the permission of the courts to uphold his oath of office.

Justice Kavanagh never did decide if West needed permission to uphold his mayoral oath of office.