Reuters:

A conservative religious group may proceed with a lawsuit seeking to overturn New York's new law legalizing same-sex marriage, a state judge has ruled.

New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a non-profit advocacy group founded by Christian clergy, said that closed-door talks between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican State Senators over the hotly-debated law, which passed in June, violated a statute requiring most meetings involving elected officials to be open to the public.

The state's Open Meetings Law exempts "deliberations of political committees, conferences and caucuses," which the state argued included the Senate's meetings with Cuomo. The Christian group said Cuomo's presence made the meetings distinct from legislative conferences.

"Clear arm-twisting by (Cuomo) on the legislature permeates this entire process," Wiggins wrote in a November 18 decision allowing the group to proceed with the Open Meetings claim.