Mayor weds 21 gay couples in N.Y.

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. -- A small town 75 miles from New York City was transformed yesterday into a platform for the gay marriage debate unfolding across the nation as a young Green Party mayor officiated at the weddings of 21 same-sex couples before a throng of television cameras and a spirited crowd of supporters.

"What we're witnessing in America today is the flowering of the largest civil rights movement the country's had in a generation," said Jason West, the 26-year-old mayor of this college town east of the Shawangunk Mountains.

West, who said he was defending equal rights for all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation, joined San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom as the only mayors in America to wed same-sex couples.

The first gay couple to be married in New Paltz were Billiam van Roestenberg, 38, and Jeffrey McGowan, 39, a former major in the US Army. "I feel good. I feel joyful. I feel at peace," said van Roestenberg. "I am proud to be an American."'

The couple met six years ago in front of the exclusive Barneys department store on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Van Roestenberg was walking his dogs and McGowan stopped to admire them. A date over coffee led to a long relationship.

"I am just happy," said McGowan, wearing a pinstripe suit. "This wasn't a protest. This was a wedding day."

The state Health Department, which provides marriage licenses, asked New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to seek an injunction against West and declare the marriages null and void. Spitzer refused.

"The validity of the marriages and the legality of the mayor's action will be determined in due course in the courts," Spitzer said.

No clerk in New Paltz supported granting a marriage license to gay couples, so West conducted the weddings without any of the couples obtaining a license, awarding them affidavits instead. And Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams Jr. said he warned West by letter that marrying a couple without a license is illegal.

"What concerns me is the allegation that a public official knowingly violated that law," Williams said. "The question of whether individuals of the same sex can be married legally is a question that should not be resolved at the local level."

Williams will wait for a New Paltz police report on what happened, check that against the law, and consult with Spitzer in deciding whether to prosecute.

West said he was following the Constitution and said he plans to continue marrying same-sex couples, inviting interested couples to sign up on the town's website.

The mayor's actions thrust him into the national uproar over gay marriage. In addition to the debate in San Francisco over the more than 3,000 marriages performed there, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has forced the state Legislature to grapple with the issue, and President Bush has called for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. In New Mexico, a county clerk issued 26 licenses earlier this month, but the state attorney general declared them invalid.

Residents of New Paltz, which has a population of about 5,000 and is home to a campus of the State University of New York, said they were not surprised at the role their town in the Hudson Valley was playing in the national debate. The mayor, who paints houses for a living, was treated like a star as he walked into the crowd of students and residents cheering, "We love Jason!"

Claire Lipton, a 19-year-old student, carried a sign that read "New Paltz is leading the Revolution."

"We are second to San Francisco," she said. "We are a little town making a huge statement."

A few in the crowd hissed after the first ceremony was finished. Otherwise, supporters teared up or cheered as couples carrying flowers stood before the mayor to exchange vows.

When Jennifer Smits, 25, an English professor, and her partner, Dana Wegener, 27, were tipped off on Thursday night that same-sex couples would be married the next day, they rushed to the Village Hall at night in their pajamas.

"We said, `Count us in!' " recalled Wegener, a chef.

Not everyone in the crowd was happy about the nuptials. Elizabeth Duffy, who lives in a nearby town, held a sign that read "marriage equals woman plus man."

"I don't want my child to think this is normal. I don't condemn homosexuals, but I think the act is a sin," she said. "I am distressed at the mayor. He is breaking the law and no one is stopping him."

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said nothing in New York law outlaws same-sex marriage.

"We believe there is no expressed prohibition in New York state marriage laws," Lieberman said.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.