New York Assembly Says “Yes” To Gay Marriage: 89 To 52
Quotes Of Assembly
Members
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Four weeks after Governor Paterson announced plans to introduce a gay marriage bill in New York, it passed its first vote today. Since that day, when the governor called his state’s lack of gay marriage a “crisis of leadership,” many factions have weighed in. On one side, State Senator Ruben Diaz, who called for the governor’s resignation, and Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who promised an “active and present” battle. On the other side, several thousand activists who flooded the state capitol to support gay rights, many secular and sectarian groups, and the New York State populace itself, which is in support of the bill by a 53% to 39% margin.
The outcome of the gay marriage decision in New York is particularly important, as New York is the third most-populous state in the nation, and one of the most visible around the world.
Assemblyman Danny O’Donnell, who was widely credited with securing passage of the bill two years ago, is similarly credited today. Profiled on the front page of today’s New York Times, O’Donnell is portrayed as, “a tenacious, ingratiating, playful and sometimes prickly leader of the effort to pass the legislation.”
The next step for the bill is a vote in the Senate, which is far less likely to pass the bill. No vote date is set yet.
Some memorable statements from the Assembly:
Don Hikind: It makes me very happy to say that my position is the same as the president’s, that he is against gay marriage. […] My God says I can’t do this.
Joel Miller: I hope that I will be the first of many Republicans who stand and say I support this bill. Throughout the animal kingdom we see homosexual behavior. There was never an advantage to be gay. It’s not gay to be gay. No one knows the size of the gay community, but it includes our family… We all remember when clearly the earth was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, it had to be that way because religion told us.
Religion is just not supposed to tell government what to do. We look at what’s going on in Islamic countries and say that belongs in the 14th century, it’s got to stop. It’s got to stop here. Religion has been the cause of more death and hatred and suffering than any thing else.
This is America, there is no room for discrimination of any kind.
Joseph Lentol: What God wants me to do in my life and in politics is to try to treat everyone equally. The principle is, shall we treat everyone equally? (We say,) ‘We’re going to give you civil unions, that’s just like equal!’ Just have your civil union and it’ll be fine.’ It’s not fine. Tonight, I vote for “love one another.”
Deborah Glick: The history of marriage has been about property, alliances between powerful families, and ensuring where the property should go, and most assuredly about the subjugation of women. The notion that this is some major departure from eons of understanding is not exactly the way it is.
What we are dealing with here is the notion of the majority’s sense of being comfortable.
I have been a member of this house for 19 years, and I don’t have the same rights as you two. Am I supposed to be concerned about your level of comfort?
We are not new on the face of the earth. Every fight for civil rights in this country has moved in a certain trajectory. Those who have said that my civil rights should be held to a public plebiscite, that is not what the constitution is about.
Mark Weprin: So much of discrimination is based on ignorance. The march of history is coming.
Patricia Eddington: This is the last bastion of hateful oppression.
Perhaps one of the the most heart-felt speeches came from Frank Skartados, who represents the Poughkeepsie area of the state:
I was the last person to come into this chambers, and probably the first one to go. But I like it here. I recognize the possibilities that we can do something positive for our community, and the state of New York. I come from a district that is very much divided between two different communities. The liberal, inner-cities, and the conservative suburbs. Very much divided. But on this issue, they are very much united. They do not want me to vote for this legislation, but I will do so. I will do so because it is the right thing to do. Not in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of a man, a humble man, like me. So, even though I may be one-term assemblymen, I’m willing to take that chance. Because it is the right thing to do. In the words of Nelson Mandela, there comes a time when the world is called upon to be great. So, ladies and gentlemen, let your greatness shine and vote for this bill.
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Over half of Americans disapprove of the job Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts is doing, according to a new Gallup poll.
In a poll taken this month by Gallup, 53% of American adults disapprove of the job Roberts is doing, compared to 38% who approve and 9% with no opinion. This is the highest disapproval rating since Gallup started asking the question.
It’s also the first time his disapproval rating has been higher than his approval rating. The last time the question was asked was in December 2023, where 46% disapproved compared to 48% approval. Even that was a huge step down from December 2021 when 60% approved and 34% approved.
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When broken out by demographics, 67% of Republicans approved of the job Roberts was doing, compared to 21% disapproval. Only 16% of Democrats approved while 78% disapproved, and among Independents, 35% approved while 57% disapproved.
The poll was conducted via telephone between December 1-15, and had a sample size of 1,016 adults across America. The margin of error was 4%.
The Supreme Court under Roberts has frequently come under fire, particularly when it comes to cases involving President Donald Trump. While the court has not always sided with the president—on Tuesday, it ruled against him in the case about deploying the national guard to Chicago—public perception is that the Court is in Trump’s pocket.
In June 2024, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called the Roberts Court the “most corrupt in American history.” A September 2021 Gallup poll saw the full Court’s approval rating hit a record low of 40%.
A month after Ocasio-Cortez made her comments, the Court made one of its most controversial rulings—deciding that Trump had immunity from prosecution for any acts made in an “official” capacity as president. The Court ruled 6-3 in that case along ideological lines, with Roberts himself writing the court’s opinion.
Experts were shocked that the Court even took up that particular case, as there had been no contradiction in lower court rulings about the limits of presidential immunity.
“Let’s not beat around the bush, decision by the Supreme Court to hear the Trump immunity case is outrageous and, at its heart, fundamentally corrupt,” author and legal expert David Rothkopf wrote at the time the Court decided to hear the case. “The Appeals Court decision was bullet proof and there is no case Trump has any sort of immunity. The decision not to hear it until late April makes further significant trial delays likely. They are deliberately delaying the trial without any reasonable legal reason to do so. This is a political decision and, in my estimation, an ugly one.”
The CEO of a anti-hate group is allowed to stay in the United States after a federal judge stopped his deportation.
Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons among other Trump administration officials. Ahmed requested a restraining order so he can fight the administration in court.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Trump administration announced an order to revoke his visa, along with the visas of four other Europeans, over claims of digital censorship. Following the announcement of the government’s intent to deport him, Ahmed alleged that the government was targeting him “as punishment for the research and public reporting carried out by the nonprofit organization that Mr. Ahmed founded and runs, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (“CCDH”), which studies the content moderation policies of major social media companies, including Elon Musk’s company, X Corp.,” the lawsuit read.
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“In other words, Mr. Ahmed faces the imminent prospect of unconstitutional arrest, punitive detention, and expulsion for exercising his basic First Amendment rights.”
District Court Judge Vernon S. Broderick ruled in favor of Ahmed; in addition, Broderick also ruled that Ahmed cannot be arrested and detained before his case can be heard, according to the BBC.
“The federal government can’t deport a green card holder like Imran Ahmed, with a wife and young child who are American, simply because it doesn’t like what he has to say,” Roberta Kaplan, Ahmed’s lawyer, told the BBC.
Ahmed’s anti-hate group was formed to combat disinformation and antisemitism online. In the past it’s collected evidence of racist and extremist content on X since Elon Musk bought the platform. X previously filed suit against CCDH in 2023 over its reporting, alleging the data collected by the group was based on “incorrect, misleading and outdated metrics,” according to the Straits Times.
The anti-hate group has recently criticised ChatGPT amid reports of the program being linked to suicides, murders and self-harm.
On Friday, Ahmed accused the tech industry of urging the administration to retaliate against him.
“This has never been about politics,” he told The Guardian. “What it has been about is companies that simply do not want to be held accountable and, because of the influence of big money in Washington, are corrupting the system and trying to bend it to their will, and their will is to be unable to be held accountable.”
“There is no other industry, that acts with such arrogance, indifference and a lack of humility and sociopathic greed at the expense of people,” he added.
The visa bans announced on Tuesday also targeted former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, Global Disinformation Index CEO Clare Melford and Anna Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, according to The Hill.
“For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship,” Rubio tweeted Tuesday. “Today, @StateDept will take steps to bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States. We stand ready and willing to expand this list if others do not reverse course.”
For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.
Today, @StateDept will take steps to…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) December 23, 2025
Of the five, Ahmed is the only one who actually lives in the United States. The others, as of this writing, remain barred from entering the United States.
Image via Reuters
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller shared a bizarre tweet Friday using an old Christmas special as an excuse to slam migrants.
“Watched the Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra Family Christmas with my kids,” Miller wrote. Imagine watching that and thinking America needed infinity migrants from the third world.”
Watched the Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra Family Christmas with my kids.
Imagine watching that and thinking America needed infinity migrants from the third world.
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) December 26, 2025
The 1967 Christmas special can be seen on YouTube. The show is a variety show featuring not just the two famous crooners, but their semi-famous offspring, including Deana, Ricci and Dino on the Martin side, along with Nancy and Frank Junior on the Sinatra side.
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It’s not clear what in the special would have made Miller think about “infinity migrants” coming to America, but both Martin and Sinatra were first-generation Americans with parents who came to the U.S. from Italy.
Miller is an anti-immigration hardliner, and has been called the “architect” of the Trump administration’s immigration policy by Reuters. Earlier this month, he condemned the children of migrants—people like Sinatra and Martin—on Fox News.
“With a lot of these immigrant groups, not only is the first generation unsuccessful. Again, Somalia is a clear example here,” Miller said, according to the New York Times, “You see persistent issues in every subsequent generation. So you see consistent high rates of welfare use, consistent high rates of criminal activity, consistent failures to assimilate.”
Miller is in favor of more ICE raids, and called the protests in California this summer an “insurrection” and “all the proof you need that mass migration unravels societies,” according to Forbes. In his role as an adviser to the Department of Homeland Security, he set a quota of 3,000 arrests a day for ICE.
Image via Reuters
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