Same-Sex Marriage: New York Assembly Passes Marriage Equality Bill – Details
Wednesday afternoon, into the evening, the 150-member New York State Assembly debated Governor Cuomo’s marriage equality bill. As expected, the bill passed, 80-63, just after 9:00 PM. And as expected, opponents cited God, religion, their desire to preserve traditional marriage as reasons for voting against equality, while supporters of the bill delivered strong responses to those who believe in traditional marriage.
The New York Senate has yet to decide if or when it will vote on the bill too. The previous same-sex marriage bill passed the Assembly on May 12, 2009, by a much wider margin, 89-52, but many seats have changed since. The Senate may vote on Friday. Governor Cuomo, who proposed the bill and has lobbied behind the scenes heavily, according to reports, would of course sign it into law.
In a surprising turn, Nick Perry (D), who voted three times before against marriage equality, said he spoke to his constituents and that, “While they believe in traditional marriage, the freedom to live the life you choose to make you happy is a right everyone should enjoy.” Saying, “It was sacrilegious to think that the world was round,” Perry voted for the bill, to one of the rare rounds of applause, including a large smile from Speaker Sheldon Silver.
READ: Archbishop: If Marriage Equality Law Passes NY Will Be Like North Korea
“Marriage has been defined since the beginning of this country,” Danny O’Donnell (D), who has now sponsored four marriage equality bills, reminded his fellow Assemblymen. “This is the body that has always done that.”
“A Senator in the House across who came out and said, ‘I’m going to vote for this,’ has been the subject of death threats, and yet, I listen to you complain that somebody called you names? Somebody called you names? Have you ever been the subject of a gay-bashing?,” O’Donnell (photo, above,) asked. He reminded the Assembly that “Under God was added to our pledge of allegiance in the ’50s, in the McCarthy era.”
Harry Bronson (D) the Assembly’s first openly-gay member not from New York City, told the chamber that not having the right to marry makes same-sex relationships less stable.
Republican Donald Miller, who detailed how Britain’s Alan Touring, “who invented the computer,” was a “homosexual,” and committed suicide two years after serving time for the crime of being gay. Miller told the chamber “we have done many wrong things,” and then said, in a true twist of logic, that passing this marriage equality bill was one of those “wrong things.”
Republican Nancy Calhoun stated that “We have the obligation to give equality in all ways,” but that she would vote against the bill, in part, “because we, the Republicans, cannot bring bills to the floor… this is not equality.” The Republicans are currently the minority in the Assembly.
“I say to you I cannot in this tenor support taking away marriage, it has a separate importance and it has to do with a man and a woman,” Calhoun stated, adding, “what we are doing today is not right. We are changing an institution of marriage. We are going to change it from what it was intended, a man and a woman.”
Democrat Naomi Rivera, who represents The Bronx, in perhaps one of the most passionate statements, said, she received 1188 emails, 936 phone calls, and over 300 letters, “asking me to vote against this bill. I happen to live in the heart of the district of the only Democratic Senator who will be voting against this bill.”
“How do I vote? Do I vote my conscience? Was i elected to vote the voice of my constituents?”
“The last time I voted, and I have always voted in support of marriage equality, was on the cusp of a re-election, and I was very concerned.”
“I had appealed to the LGBT community, and, (Rivera, pausing,) not a check, not a body, and I felt alone.”
Rivera detailed her conversations with her father, her mother — a Jehovah’s witness —  and her young son. Rivera’s father is New York Assemblyman Jose Rivera, and her brother is New York City Councilman Joel Rivera.
“What is the message that I’m going to give to my son about love, religion, marriage?”
“I’ve been given the responsibility to provide leadership in my community. I’ve been given the responsibility to help pave the way for the future generation for my son. I want him to remember that he should always take a stand, and it is to stand up for justice and equality for all,” Rivera said.
“I had felt alone, but I don’t feel alone.” Rivera voted for marriage equality.
READ: NY: Cuomo Unveils Marriage Equality Bill With Deep Religious Exemptions
Democrat Richard Gottfried, the longest-serving member of the Assembly, stood and imitated those voting against the bill, saying, “Do not presume that your kind is fit to join our club, but don’t try to join our cliub. Our club is too important for your kind to join.”
“It is hard to imagine a more profoundly insulting and degrading and disrespectful statement to make than to say ‘your kind is not fit to join the institution of marriage,’ that I think we all recognize as a fundamental human right.” The Assemblyman, who has served 40 years, spoke of strong families, and that marriage strengthens families, and therefore marriage equality “helps to build a stronger New York.”
Democrat Micah Kellner told the chamber that when he proposed, he immediately told his fiance that they would have to wait until marriage equality was legal in New York.
Dean Murray (R), voting no, said, “I’m a conservative I’m extremely proud of that.” Â “If same-sex marriage does not pass tonight I don’t think it’s going to mean… that anyone’s love will be lessened.” Murray claimed that supporting only traditional marriage does not make him a bigot nor does it make him less tolerant.
Taking a false swipe at President Obama, Steve McLaughlin said, “I don’t believe I’m a bigot, it doesn’t make me a bigot, it makes me a traditional marriter.” McLaughlin told the chamber, falsely, that Obama changed his mind on the constitutionality of DOMA. “There’s no push for gay marriage in Britain,” McLaughlin falsely claimed, citing Britain’s extension of some domestic partnership benefits.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
