Even Before David Paterson’s Downfall, New York State Had Lost All Its Leaders Fighting For Marriage Equality.
Snow has engulfed New York City with little end in sight. By tomorrow we should have two feet on the ground — for New York City, that’s a lot! It’s beautiful, it’s dangerous, it’s wonderful. And like the sudden crashing to the ground of ice from awnings, it hit me as I was walking my dog this morning — the realization, not the ice — that the state of marriage equality in New York is like a bastard, orphaned child, crying to be born. And our leaders aren’t fulfilling their parental obligations.
David Paterson, who has been Governor of New York three weeks short of one year, and who last weekend announced his decision to begin his campaign for election to his currently-held seat of Governor — which he inherited when Eliot Spitzer resigned after fourteen months in office when it became known he was the client of a prostitution ring — has just announced after less than one week of officially being a candidate, that he will not seek reelection. Seems he has a bit of a scandal of his own.
That was today.
Yesterday we learned that thirty-nine year veteran U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel, who for some strange reason Democrats saw fit to include at the table in Thursday’s historic Blair House Healthcare Summit with President Obama, and who represents New York’s 15th congressional district (Upper Manhattan and Queens) and is the Chairman of the very powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and who is being investigated for ethical violations, is being publicly rebuked by the House ethics committee for breaking House rules, and is being pressured to resign his Chairmanship. And this is just the initial finding — meaning more on the way for the Ways and Means Chair.
Last month, now-former New York State Senator Hiram Monserrate was the first in nearly a century to be expelled from the Senate, after being convicted of domestic abuse charges, which included dragging his girlfriend by the hair through his apartment building lobby and driving her miles out of the way to a hospital where he would not be recognized. (He was.) He not only has vowed to run for his now-former seat, but last week failed in his lawsuit to have his expulsion expunged.
Monserrate, New Yorkers and regular readers of this blog will know, was key in the overthrow of the New York State Senate last summer, shutting it down for a month, and using the issue of same-sex marriage as a political football. Monserrate may be the most-hated member of New York’s “Hate 38,” the group of Senators who voted in early December against marriage equality, causing it to die under a crushing 38-24 defeat. It seems the former-Senator took our money, claimed he would vote for marriage equality until the last moment, then voted against it.
Add to all this political drama and disaster the fact that both Governor Spitzer and Governor Paterson promised to midwife marriage equality into New York.
Spitzer, who campaigned on a promise to usher gay marriage into New York, at his first State of the State address promised only that he saw New York as a “state that understands that the civil rights movement still has chapters to be written.” That was January, 2007, and that was all we got from him. Two years later, Governor Paterson proclaimed he would take up the fight for gay marriage, proclaiming,
“For too long the gay and lesbian communities have been told that their rights and freedoms have to wait… The time has come to act, the time has come for leadership, the time has come to bring marriage equality to the State of New York.â€
Bringing it all home, the Governor, in a televised address, surrounded by a dozen state leaders and politicians, cried, lack of marriage equality was “not a crisis of issues but a crisis of leadership.â€
Now, it seems, the crisis still is a crisis of leadership.
Let’s not forget the recent resignation — albeit more than honorable — of Alan van Capelle, the now-former Executive Director of Empire State Pride Agenda, the leading marriage equality organization in New York. Monday he heads off to work for NYC’s new Comptroller John Liu.
My point to all this is simple. Marriage equality is the bastard, orphaned unborn child of New York because there’s no one leading the fight to bring it into this world. It’s the political football foster child being used and abused to by all camps to gain something else. By the politicians for votes and campaign cash. By anti-gay groups like NOM, for cash. Spitzer, Paterson, Monserrate (and his even more guilty buddy, state Senator Pedro Espada,) and the “Hate 38,” Gallagher, Brown, and their ilk, the list is long.
Every kid needs a parent. Every cause needs a leader, and in New York, there’s no one taking charge.
To mis-quote an old Carol Burnett skit, (or, perhaps, the original “Gone With The Wind,) there’s no one here who knows nothing about birthing no babies…
It’s no wonder people are taking measures into their own hands. It’s no wonder we have “Gays behaving badly.” It’s no wonder activists shout-down Senate candidates like Harold Ford (who deserved to be shouted down — but not during his speech. Wait til he’s done speaking, boys. His words would have garnered enough trouble for him. He didn’t need help looking bad. We didn’t need to look bad, either.)
But, can we really blame them? Those protesters were doing the same thing kids do when there’s no one in charge: acting out.
It’s no wonder New Yorkers are furious. Our politicians either don’t support marriage equality (see: the “Hate 38,”) or say they will, then they vote against it. Or, they say they will, then they leave in scandal. (See: Spitzer, Paterson.)
Our advocates, like van Capelle, get frustrated and move on to bigger things — understandably so.
So, New York state, which by rights should have joined with our New England neighbors when marriage equality was gaining momentum last year, and in which a majority of citizens support marriage equality, is left without leadership, without partnership, and without much hope.
Here’s what will happen.
Activist groups, angry, frustrated, feeling powerless and yet empowered by a lack of leadership, will continue to do things like chain themselves to New York City’s marriage bureau to draw attention to the cause, or shout down political candidates, or crash elected officials’ Christmas parties, or worse, “by any means necessary.”
All these acts will only get worse until the leadership void is filled and until New York gets marriage equality. Fortunately, that bastard, orphaned, unborn child that is marriage equality is going to be born, hopefully sooner rather than later, and when it is, it will be among the most beautiful babies ever to grace the earth.
The time has come. The time for leadership, for smart and sensible action, for equality, for New York.
Who will lead us? Who will follow? Who will fight? Who will win?
Yes, my friends, like the sudden crashing to the ground of ice from awnings, the birth of marriage equality is a natural law that will happen. It’s a matter of time, and it’s up to us.