James Ellis, a UNM law professor, said Wednesday the proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage probably will not pass this year.
Ellis was part of a panel at a teach-in at the UNM School of Law about the controversy surrounding gay marriages in New Mexico and the rest of the country. He added the controversy is being used as a political pawn to focus public opinion on the issue.
"The best gauge I get from people in Washington is that it's unlikely to succeed in the Senate and I really don't think it will be brought to the House in 2004," he said.
Ellis, the panel's constitutional law expert, called the gay marriage movement a "phenomenon that erupted, that took on a life of its own fast." He said because it happened so quickly, it did not develop in a way that was optimal toward its success.
Adams said gay marriage has always been the "Holy Grail" of the gay rights movement, and that Lambda, a national legal advocate for gay rights, had built strategies to gradually bring the issue to the forefront of national attention.
Then, he said, "there was San Francisco."
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Ellis said after the surge of same-sex marriages around the country, the political takes on the topic changed drastically. Only a year ago, supporting legalized civil unions for same-sex couples was a fairly liberal idea, he said, but now it's become a conservative middle ground.
Though Ellis said he didn't see same-sex marriage being outlawed on a national level this year, it probably wouldn't become nationally legalized either.
"Sometimes it's about loss management," he said. "You have to figure out how to lose so it helps your next battle."
Suellyn Scarnecchia, dean of the law school, said good lawyers know the other sides as well as they known their own and asked the panel to discuss the viewpoints of proponents of legislation to ban gay marriage.
The most prominent argument that opponents of these laws make relates to the relationship between marriage and procreation and raising children, said Michael Adams, director of education and public affairs for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.
"The notion goes that an essential purpose of marriage is procreation and raising children and says that same-sex couples cannot procreate by what they call natural means," he said. "Therefore, allowing same-sex couples to marry becomes against procreation."
Attorney Lynn Perls, another panel member, said that she does not agree with Attorney General Patricia Madrid's interpretation of the law in response to the 64 same-sex marriage licenses issued Feb. 20 in Sandoval County.
"When you have an issued and recorded marriage license it's completely valid until a court of law deems it otherwise, and it is our condition at this time that 64 couples remain married," she said.
Perls, a lawyer in Rio Rancho - a part of Sandoval County - also said New Mexico won't see the kinds of lawsuits that are cropping up in other states until someone challenges the licenses' validity.
Perls said hundreds of people did not head down to the Sandoval County Clerk's Office Feb. 20 because they wanted to be part of a lawsuit - they went because they wanted to get married.
Similarly, Adams said the couples that received marriage licenses are part of a bigger picture.
"In order to get the rights you need, you have to ask for the rights you deserve," he said.
