Ministers around the world declared April 29, 2004, International Day of Clergy Support for Same-Sex Marriage. Ulster County District Attorney Don Williams charged Unitarian Universalist ministers Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangray with violating New York State marriage laws. The ministers conducted civil ceremonies in New Paltz, N.Y. for 13 gay and lesbian couples, but none of the couples had state-recognized marriage licenses.

According to Williams and state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, couples must have state marriage license to marry. Spitzer said, "I strongly urge other officials who might be considering solemnizing marriages to refrain from doing so." But, without that license, couples are not considered legally married. To get the license, a couple must go to a clerk of courtc. Spitzer told the clerks not to give same-sex couples licenses.

So, in New Paltz, lesbian and gay couples could not get a license, and so could not be considered legally married in New York. While 39 states and Congress rewrote their marriage laws to give special rights only to heterosexual couples, New York law does not prohibit same-sex couples from marrying. However, elected officials continue to deny gay and lesbian couples unconditional constitutional equality. Not only that but..

Well here's the story.

Ever since the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that there was no reason same-sex couples could not marry, a new ripple in the equal rights for gays and lesbians started moving across the country. The whole marriage fuss started in New Paltz because newly elected Green Party candidate, Mayor Jason West decided to do what San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was doing --- conducting marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples.

Actually, the conversation with West started back in August 2003, when he and Billiam Van Roestenberg and Jeff McGowan started talking about gay and lesbian marriage.

Van Roestenberg and McGowan were thinking about this because their friends. Charles Clement and Maurice Zinken who had actually really legally married in the Netherlands, told them what happened, and well everyone got excited about the possibility of this newly elected Mayor of conducting these marriages.

Now if West could have conducted ceremonies for couples with licenses he would have, but since the couples could not get the licnese, West had them sign marriage affidavits instead. The whole thing gets a little complicated here. See, there is a town of New Paltz and a village of New Paltz. Only the village clerk of court could issue a license. West is mayor of the town, and had no authority to tell the clerk to issue licenses. Complicated, or just plain stupid.

Even if the couples had licenses, New York state would not give them the same rights as heterosexual married couples anyway.

But Ulster DA Williams decided that West broke the law by marrying people who had no licenses -- the ones no one would give them. Strangly enough though, Williams did not ask the court to issue an injunction to stop West from performing any other marriages. He just charged West with a misdemeanor, conducting ceremonies without licenses.

New Paltz village trustee Bob Hebel decided he needed his 15 minutes of fame too. Since the DA didn't seek the injunction, Hebel would.

Hebel called the antigay Liberty Counsel lawyers from Florida, and the Counsel's president Mathew Staver convinced a New York Supreme Court judge to issue an injunction. Staver wrote on his web page, "I am excited that God has called the Liberty Counsel team to the front line of the culture war to advance family, faith and freedom."

Supreme Court justice Michael Kavanagh of Ulster County, issued the injunction for West to stop conducting marriage ceremonies without marriage licneses -- the licenses no one would issue for marriages not recognized by the state of New York anyway.

This might have been the end of it, if it hadn't been for Unitarian Universalist Minister, Kay Greenleaf, who called her friend and colleague Rev. Dawn Sangray to start a new wave of civil marriage ceremonies in New Paltz.

Then DA Williams charged the two ministers with violating New York State law -- you know the one about needing marriage licenses, even though New York doesn't recognize the marriages as legally binding. Greenleaf and Sangray were indicted while a crowd of supporters stood outside the court house. Yet again Williams did not seek an injunction to stop them from conducting any more ceremonies, and this time Hebel didn't either.

By now, New Paltz College Queer Student Union leaders joined forces with Charles Clemen and Maurice Zinken, owners of Lefevre House Bed and Breakfast, and other area activists to coordinate all the marriages. Within weeks of the first round of ceremonies, more than 1000 couples signed up to get hitched. The New Paltz Equality Initiative started, and Jamie Fallorino, Jessica Mazarino and Wazina Zodon put together the ceremonies at private businesses.

Yet, how can that possibly be, since the ministers were charged with violating the state's laws?

Greenleaf contacted other colleagues, who stepped up to the altar, and conducted civil ceremonies every other weekend. Even heterosexual ministers, like Charles Bluestein Orman drove up from New Jersey to aid and abet these civil ceremonies. Not one of these other ministers were charged with violating the law though.

First DA Williams said there were enough cases to litigate the issue in the courts.

Then he said the Ulster Count court docket was too full to continue these kinds of cases.

While West had his 15 minutes of fame, being on the Conan O'Brien show, talking to Katy Couric on the Today show, and even having his life history chronicled in the New York Times Sunday Magazine Section, he did not continue in the tradition of American revolutionaries who refused to follow unjust laws. West did one day of ceremonies, and then backed down after criminal charges were brought against him, and a judge told him to cut it out.

But Reverends Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangray continued exercising their constitutional rights, by conducting ceremonies.

In solidarity with them, as Rev. Pat Bumgardner Senior Pastor, Metropolitan Community Church in New York City stated, to district attorneys around the state, "If you believe it is wrong to marry without a civil marriage license, then arrest all of us, too. Otherwise, stop harassing clergy who conduct same-sex marriages for your own political gain."