NY Governor ♡s Gay Marriage, NY Lawmakers, Not So Much

NY State Assembly Dragging Its Feet On The LGBTQ Community?

 

After a week of heightening anticipation, NY Governor David Patterson today announced he will introduce a gay marriage bill Thursday. Although the legislation is the same that was introduced two years ago by his predecessor and passed by a wide margin in the State Assembly, already the NY State Legislature sounds to be stalling. The New York Times reports:

“This is not a guarantee of anything,” said Assemblyman Micah Z. Kellner, a Democrat from the Upper East Side who noted that it took two months for legislation legalizing same-sex marriage to get through the Assembly in 2007 before it ultimately stalled. The Senate never acted on the bill.

The legislation is likely to have an especially long road in the Senate, where more lawmakers oppose same-sex marriage than support it. Gay rights advocates are now actively seeking more senators – both Democrats and Republicans – to vote for the bill.

While Mr. Paterson has said he would like to see lawmakers “fight it out” and debate the bill on the floor of both houses even if it fails, Albany tradition dictates that the bill is likely to come to a vote only when it has enough support to pass. Senator Thomas K. Duane, a Democrat and the bill’s chief supporter in the Senate has said he opposes the governor’s notion of fast-tracking it. And the Senate majority leader, Malcolm A. Smith, has said he would bring the bill to the floor when it has enough support.”

But the most disappointing words came from the NY  State Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. In the now-traditional mode of, “It’s the economic crisis, stupid,” mirroring Vermont’s vetoed governor Jim Douglas and even pro-gay marriage NJ Governor Jon Corzine, politicians have been mimicking the John McCain mantra of “let’s drop everything and focus on nothing but the economy” as an excuse to, in the words of DADT-delayer Defense Secretary Robert Gates, “push that one down the road  little bit.” Via politickerny.com:

“Shams Tarek, a spokesman for the state Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said the conference members are “going to expand their majority by focusing on the state’s economy, creating jobs and undoing the fiscal damage done by 40 years of Republican rule.”

While some gay marriage advocates aren’t so sure they want a vote before they are certain of a victory, perhaps the biggest stumbling block on the road to gay marriage for the country’s third-largest state is Democratic Senator of The Bronx, Ruben Diaz. Diaz is an ordained minister, and has publicly opposed same-sex marriage on numerous occasions, along with being “critical of the city hosting the Gay Games, claiming that doing so would lead to an increase in AIDS cases and to wider acceptance of homosexuality by young people.”

Additionally, “in 2003, Díaz filed a lawsuit to stop the expansion of the Harvey Milk School (a school for gay students who suffer discrimination in traditional settings), claiming that the school infringed the rights of heterosexual students.”

(image: CarbonNYC)