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NY Same-Sex Marriage Equality News Update: Monday Morning Memo

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The New York State Senate is expected to vote on Governor Cuomo’s same-sex marriage equality bill as early as Monday, optimists believe, though a vote, if indeed it takes place, could be delayed to as late as Wednesday. New York’s same-sex marriage equality battle — now just one vote shy of passage — raged on a playing field last week of so-called religious exemptions, or, as some would call it, discrimination written directly into the bill. But reports now suggest Senate staffers spent the weekend negotiating language that would appease both religious leaders and LGBT activists.

“Negotiators for the Republican-run Senate privately admitted that a deal is near after aides spent the Father’s Day weekend ironing out language to appease ‘religious liberty’ concerns that have been raised by several fence-sitting GOP senators,” Monday’s New York Post reports.

The Albany Times-Union quotes Senate Deputy Minority Leader Neil Breslin (D) saying,”I think it’s the typical end of the session, but in this situation there are more important items to resolve. I believe marriage equality will be resolved…”

To try to avoid a positive resolution, today, “Gay marriage opponents – including Giant David Tyree – will hold a press conference/deliver 63,000 petitions outside the Senate GOP conference room at 1 p.m.,” Liz Benjamin reports this morning.

But even our staunchest opponents who have real power (not just a dried-up football career and lack of understanding of the definition of “anarchy,”) like NY State Senator Greg Ball, have shown, after saying, “no,” they are open to suggestion and debate.

The conservative Republican who has been most-vocal on religious exemptions,over the weekend, via Twitter, asked folks to tweet him their opinion on how he should vote. Tens of thousands (at least) responded, and by looking at the responses, 99% are “yes.” Ball cannot possibly vote no now, can he?

LGBT activists held pro-marriage equality rallies over the weekend throughout the state, including two in Manhattan.

HRC adds, “On Sunday, members of the faith community all across the Empire State gathered to show their strong support for full marriage rights for all New Yorkers.  Parishioners throughout the state, including Rochester, Buffalo, the Capital Region, Long Island, and Staten Island, came together this Father’s Day after Sunday services in solidarity for marriage for all loving New York couples.”

While many religious groups have come out in active support of same-sex marriage equality, New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén Díaz has been aggressively and viciously attacking the LGBT community.

“Supporters of New York Hispanic Clergy Organization gathered outside the office of Bronx Sen. Ruben Diaz to protest the gay marriage legislation and affirm their strong support for Diaz, the only Democrat state senator who will vote no on the bill. The Rev. Diaz, who is a Pentecostal minister, is the president of the Christian Hispanic group,” the Christian Post writes.

The man who holds the power to call an up-or-down vote on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s marriage equality bill, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, isn’t budging. “There is a concern right now as to the unintended consequences of some of the religious clauses, carve-outs, protections, and we’re reviewing that,” Skelos said Friday.

The “concern” comes mainly from the Archbishop Tim Dolan and his separation-of-church-and-state-flouting Catholic Conference.

Meanwhile, Capital Tonight reports,a “group of more than 700 faith leaders across New York who support same-sex marriage are speaking out in response to the criticism of the language in the Governor’s same-sex marriage bill,” saying it offers enough protections, and that opponents are “using religion a smokescreen to hide their intolerance.”

While one media outlet is calling Governor Andrew Cuomo “the new face of gay marriage rights,” Archbishop Tim Dolan — the man who literally tried to pray away the gay marriage bill in church on Sunday — has become the face of hate and hubris. New York Times’ op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd is calling New York Archbishop “ferocious.”

“The archbishop has been ferocious in fighting against marriage between same-sex couples, painting it as a perversity against nature,” Dowd writes, adding, “If only his church had been as ferocious in fighting against the true perversity against nature: the unending horror of pedophile priests and the children who trusted them.”

Further, Dowd quotes Dolan saying, “And, what about other rights, like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad?” To which Dowd asks, “And how about the right of a child not to be molested by the parish priest?”

“Dolan acts like getting married (when done by gays) is a self-indulgent act of hedonism when it’s really a leap of faith and a promise of fidelity,” she writes.

Exactly.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent calls this the “most important thing to watch today,” and writes, “The larger story is striking… If New York takes this step today — which would make it the largest state thus far to do so — it will reinforce the sense that the national outcome of this decades-long civil-rights battle, which has produced a truly astonishing shift in public attitudes, is inevitable.”

If the marriage equality bill passes, licenses will be available 30 days later.

Cautious optimism with a touch of last-minute not-taking-anything-for-granted is the forecast for today.

(Image: Civil rights attorney Yetta Kurland speaking to hundreds of marriage equality supporters Sunday.)

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Trump ‘Laser-Focused’ on Affordability Says White House After Calling It a ‘Hoax’

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The White House says President Donald Trump has been “laser-focused on making America affordable” since taking office. Just one month ago, President Trump called affordability a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.

President Trump has recently attempted to preserve his sweeping tariffs amid Supreme Court review, has engaged in foreign policy messaging involving Venezuela, Iran, and Greenland — including promoting himself as the “acting President of Venezuela” — and has responded sharply to protests involving federal officers.

The president campaigned on lowering the cost of living on “day one,” but nearly 51 weeks into his second term, inflation remains high.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that the president would travel to Detroit on Tuesday to deliver a speech about “all of the positive economic news that we continue to see as a result of his agenda.”

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“So tomorrow, he looks forward to traveling to the great state of Michigan, a state he won big, to not only tour a factory that produces Ford F-150s, and is going to be hiring more, and producing more trucks right here in the USA because of President Trump’s effective tariff policies,” Leavitt said.

Trump narrowly won Michigan, taking less than half of the vote and besting Vice President Kamala Harris by 1.4 percentage points.

Leavitt said that “mortgage rates that are falling under 6% for the first time in years,” “the national average of gasoline is the lowest that it’s been in five years,” and core inflation is “at its lowest level in five years.”

She suggested that “with a little bit of patience, the American people are going to continue to see that the best is yet to come,” and claimed that Trump “has a proven economic formula that works.”

Leavitt also said that Trump has a housing plan “in the works” and a healthcare plan “in the works,” and vowed that Americans will “continue to hear from the president, and he’ll continue to hit the road across the country to speak directly with the people he loves most, the American people.”

READ MORE: Trump ‘Losing Political Fight’ to Fed Chair: Analyst

 

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Trump DOJ Fires Attorney Who Refused to Prosecute James Comey

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The Trump Department of Justice has terminated a 64-year old attorney, the number-two official in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, after he refused to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey in a highly-controversial case.

MS NOW on Monday reported that Robert McBride, a senior DOJ prosecutor and former Navy lawyer, “was brought into the prominent satellite office of the Justice Department to serve as first assistant to U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan and took a more prominent role as her status was in question and after a judge ruled in late November that she was not legally appointed to run the office.”

McBride reportedly had held private meetings with judges, MS NOW reported, calling it a move that was “viewed as undermining the Administration.”

He had declined to prosecute Comey, sources said, reportedly telling top Justice Department officials that it would be difficult to do that and also run the office.

MS NOW’s Carol Leonnig added that McBride was also suspected of “gunning for” the top job.

The New York Times reported that there was a “disagreement about whether he would take charge of the Trump administration’s effort to re-indict James B. Comey,” and called McBride’s firing “the latest development in the fallout in the Justice Department over President Trump’s effort to punish Mr. Comey, the former F.B.I. director and his longtime nemesis, whom the president blames for past investigations of his conduct.”

The Times added that meeting with judges is considered “commonplace.”

 

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‘Screwed’: Trump Warns Supreme Court on Tariffs

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With many Americans awaiting a Supreme Court decision on the sweeping Trump tariffs and some experts believing the Court will rule on them any day nowpossibly as soon as Wednesday — the president is once again sending a clear warning to the justices: allow the tariffs or America is “screwed.”

During the November oral arguments, liberal and conservative justices appeared skeptical of the administration’s claim it has the power to impose global tariffs by declaring a national emergency.

President Trump has repeatedly said the tariffs are necessary for national security, and said that if the court does not allow them the U.S. would be in no position to give refunds of billions of dollars. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent late last week said refunds “won’t be a problem.”

Trump on Monday appeared to disagree.

READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist

“The actual numbers that we would have to pay back if, for any reason, the Supreme Court were to rule against the United States of America on Tariffs, would be many Hundreds of Billions of Dollars,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday afternoon. It is possible the Court could rescind the Trump tariffs and not require refunds.

The president then added that “the amount of ‘payback’ that Countries and Companies would require for the Investments they are making on building Plants, Factories, and Equipment, for the purpose of being able to avoid the payment of Tariffs. When these Investments are added, we are talking about Trillions of Dollars!”

He claimed any negative ruling would create “a complete mess,” and make it “almost impossible for our Country to pay.”

Despite his Treasury Secretary’s remarks, Trump added, “Anybody who says that it can be quickly and easily done would be making a false, inaccurate, or totally misunderstood answer to this very large and complex question.”

“It may not be possible but, if it were, it would be Dollars that would be so large that it would take many years to figure out what number we are talking about and even, who, when, and where, to pay,” he claimed.

And he warned point-blank, “if the Supreme Court rules against the United States of America on this National Security bonanza, WE’RE SCREWED!”

READ MORE: Trump ‘Losing Political Fight’ to Fed Chair: Analyst

 

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