(New York City) New York City will recognize same-sex marriages and civil unions – but only if they were performed outside the state in areas where they are already legal.

The announcement was made by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s special counsel, Anthony W. Crowell and comes two months after the mayor appealed a ruling by a New York City judge that denying marriage to gay and lesbian couples violated the state constitution.

While the appeal works its way through New York’s appeal process, the Mayor’s decision to recognize the marriages of New Yorkers who went out of state to marry or form civil unions was welcomed by LGBT civil rights activists.

“We applaud Mayor Bloomberg for taking a step in the right direction and working to ensure that same-sex couples who live in New York City and have been married in Canada, Massachusetts and other places are now as legally married as a couple who got a license at City Hall,” said Allan Van Capelle, the executive director of Pride Agenda..

New York City becomes the sixth locality in New York State to pro-actively affirm that it recognizes marriages of same-sex couples, according them the same rights as all other marriages within their local jurisdictions. Other localities are Buffalo, Rochester, Brighton, Ithaca and Nyack. The announcements follow Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s opinion that marriages and civil unions of same-sex couples performed outside the state should be treated as valid marriages in New York State.

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Also – Majority In NYS Support Gay Marriage

Almost as gay as Massachusetts.