18 New York bar groups announce support for the freedom to marry

May 18, 2011

18 New York bar groups announced their support for the freedom to marry yesterday at a press conference in NYC. City Bar President Samuel Seymour said that the "time is right" for state legislators to pass a marriage bill, according to the New York Law Journal. Seymour went on to criticize civil union, which he stated is not a viable alternative to marriage:

"In their remarks at the city bar's 44th Street headquarters, Mr. Seymour, of Sullivan & Cromwell, and other bar leaders focused on the legal disadvantages faced by unmarried same-sex couples and called civil unions 'not an acceptable substitute for marriages.'

'Civil unions impose second-class status on a whole category of people, and the people of New York deserve better than that,' he said, adding that the bar groups would not support a law allowing only civil unions. The bar groups, Mr. Seymour said, believe that politically the 'time is right' for same-sex marriage legislation to pass in Albany."

Click here to read the full article in the New York Law Journal.