Andrew Cuomo addresses ESPA 2010 Spring Dinner

"I pledge my continued commitment to work with you in achieving equality for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens." - Andrew Cuomo

Enact Marriage Equality:

- Marriage equality is a question of principle and the State shouldn’t discriminate against same-sex couples who wish to get married. Barring marriage equality denies same-sex couples and their families over 1,000 federal and 700 state rights and responsibilities.196 For instance, spouses have hospital visitation rights and can make medical decisions in event of illness or disability of their spouse; employers offer spouses sick leave, bereavement leave, access to health insurance and pension; and the law provides certain automatic rights to a person’s spouse regardless of whether or not a will exists. None of these rights exist automatically for same-sex couples in the absence of marriage.

- As Governor, Andrew Cuomo will not stand for such discrimination. He will fight to make sure all couples have equal marriage rights under the law.

AS ATTORNEY GENERAL:

As Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo’s office confronted injustice head on in a variety of ways:

- He successfully led the effort to insure validly executed out-of-state marriages between same-sex couples are recognized in New York.

- His office defended the recognition of valid out-of-state marriages between same-sex couples in a series of legal challenges that were filed against public officials for recognizing those marriages. The cases were ultimately argued before the highest court in New York, the Court of Appeals, which affirmed that out-of-state marriages between same-sex couples should be recognized in the State.

- He investigated and prosecuted gender identity discrimination.

- He reached an agreement with a national clothing retailer that operates approximately 1,000 stores across the United States, requiring the company to take important steps to ensure that employees and job applicants are not treated differently because if their gender expression or identity. The agreement requires the adoption and implementation of anti-discrimination policies and procedures in their New York stores to ensure that all job applicants and employees are provided with equal opportunities regardless of gender identity and expression, train staff on the prohibition against gender identity and expression discrimination, retain an independent auditor to monitor future compliance with the agreement, and pay $70,000 to New York State to resolve the investigation.

- And he has shut down discriminatory adoption services.

- His office successfully banned Adoption Media L.L.C. and Adoption Profiles L.L.C, both nationwide adoption service providers, from doing business in New York State as a result of an investigation into the companies discriminatory policies, procedures and practices. The companies, which tout themselves as servicing 1.5 million people per month, intentionally excluded individuals from adopting children based on marital status and sexual orientation. As a result of his Attorney General Cuomo’s action, the companies can no longer conduct business in the State.

- Successfully secured health insurance coverage for same-sex and common law spouses and their dependents.

- The Attorney General’s office, along with local advocates, successfully compelled Otsego County to reverse its prior decision to exclude same-sex couples and common law spouses and their dependents from its health care plan. The County initially contended that the exclusion of same-sex and common law spouses was legal because the plan is self-funded. After commencement of the Attorney General’s investigation, the County subsequently reversed its decision and issued resolutions revising its health care plan to provide coverage to all same-sex and common law spouses and their dependents.



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