March 2, 2004

"Solomizing." Newsday.com tells us:
Four days after presiding over a slew of same sex marriages in his quaint Hudson Valley village, the mayor of New Paltz today was charged with 19 violations of New York's domestic relations law, injecting the debate over gay marriages in the state with increasing drama and urgency.

Jason West, 26-year-old Green Party mayor, was ordered to appear in court Wednesday to answer charges that he broke state law by solomizing about two dozen weddings without a marriage license, according to New Paltz police and West's lawyer.

Solomizing??? Is that some combination of solemnizing and sodomizing? With perhaps a dash of Salomé, presumably the Oscar Wilde version.

And, yeah, it's awfully harsh here to take the criminal route. On the other hand, litigating the issue when faced with a criminal charge (with a possible one year sentence) might make the gay marriage cause more sympathetic than it would look in a civil suit.

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