Long Island Gay Couple Charged With Trespassing In Marriage License Protest

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: April 29, 2008 - 11:00 am ET

(Oyster Bay, New York) A middle-aged gay couple was charged with trespassing when they refused to leave the town clerk's office after being refused a marriage license.

Dan Pinello, 58, and Lee Nissensohn, 50, entered the building about 3:30 Monday afternoon.

Town Clerk Steven L. Labriola told the couple he was "precluded by law" from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

"We're not trying to make statements here, we're trying to do our jobs," he later told Newsday.

Pinello and Nissensohn have been together for 15 years but say New York's ban on same-sex marriage treats them like strangers.

When they refused to budge police were called.

Outside the building a small group of supporters held signs supporting gay marriage. The demonstrators chanted, "Let Dan and Lee Marry."

Two hours later Pinello and Nissensohn emerged without their marriage license but with tickets for trespassing.

"We are law-abiding citizens," Pinello, a government professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told Newsday. "We pay our taxes. We have no other choice left."

In 2006 the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled that same-sex couples do not have a constitutional right to marry. It said that the issue, however, could be taken up by the Legislature.

Last year, then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer became the first governor in the country to introduce same-sex marriage legislation.

The bill passed the Democrat-controlled Assembly in June but Republicans who control the Senate have refused to consider the legislation.

Pinello and Nissensohn said they hoped their protest would pressure Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R) to bring the marriage bill to a vote on the Senate floor.

A spokesperson for Bruno said Tuesday that the Majority Leader has not changed his mind on opposing same-sex marriage.