Friday, December 18, 2009, Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Washington D.C. This came after months of debate and the Catholic’s Church ultimatum—if the district legalized same-sex marriage, then the Catholic Church would stop funding the Catholic Charities organizations in the District that provide services to the needy.
Even though Fenty’s signature is on the document, Congress now has 30 working days to review the legislation. The Democratic controlled Congress is not expected to act. In May of 2009, Nancy Pelosi was quoted, “ I don’t think Congress should intervene, any more than we should intervene when New York did something similar.”
Same-sex marriage supporters have been lobbying the D.C. City Council on this measure, especially since the 2008 election when California voters voted on a measure that took back marriage equality by less than a 1% margin.
Congress has only intervened in Washington D.C.’s laws 3 times over the past 25 years.
Same-sex marriage continues to be a heavily debated issue across the nation. As of December 2009, only 5 states have legalized same-sex marriage: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. Two states have had their marriage equality laws repealed by ballot measures that define marriage as being between a man and a woman: California and Maine. Eleven states offer Civil Marriage or Domestic Partnership Agreements.
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