CAUTION IN COURT FOR GAY RIGHTS GROUPS: From the New York Times

Fearful that aggressive action could backfire and generate public hostility, gay rights groups are planning to limit the scope of their legal challenges to the constitutional amendments banning gay marriage that were passed by 11 states last week.

The groups are making a temporary retreat from their most fundamental goal, winning the right for same-sex marriages, and focusing instead on those measures that addressed civil unions in some way. The groups say that broader suits seeking the right to marry could add fuel to President Bush's efforts to create a federal prohibition on gay marriage. Many of the state amendments passed by overwhelming margins, and Karl Rove, the architect of Mr. Bush's re-election, said this week that there was a broad national consensus that marriage is between a man and a woman.

So challenging the new state amendments by arguing that gays have the right to marry under the federal Constitution is unlikely anytime soon. Instead, gay rights groups will move cautiously, mostly on procedural matters in states whose measures appear to infringe on civil unions and benefits for same-sex couples. ...

Gay rights advocates said they would pursue two kinds of relatively oblique challenges to the amendments because they present low risks. Some of the amendments, they say, violated state laws on how questions are presented to voters; others are simply unclear. ...

A second kind of relatively low-risk lawsuit would seek clarification of ambiguous language. The language in the Ohio amendment, for instance, said David Buckel, the director of the marriage project at Lambda Legal, a national gay rights group, "really makes you scratch your head."

The amendment says the state "shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage."

"We presume that this law will be interpreted to be as harmful as it can be to gay families," Mr. Buckel said, citing the possibility that the law could, for instance, bar a member of a gay couple from visiting his or her partner in the hospital. "We will be filing suit to seek a narrowing construction of the law."

Questions concerning whether states and their agencies, including state universities, may continue to offer health insurance to gay partners are likely to arise in Ohio, Michigan and Utah, legal analysts said.

Mr. Foreman said, "People are deluging us with calls about whether they are going to lose domestic partnership health benefits, about whether they can complete the adoption of a child, about whether they have to change their living wills."

The amendment that passed in Oregon will probably not void the 3,000 marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples in the state in March, legal analysts said. But those licenses are in jeopardy for other reasons, and the Oregon Supreme Court is considering the matter.

For now at least, gay rights groups say filing suit in federal court arguing that the new amendments violate the federal Constitution would be treacherous.

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posted by Eve at 6:40 PM VOTE

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