Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: It’s time for New York to join the battle
Governor David Patterson supports it. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is ready. The state’s two senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, think it’s time (and yes it’s fair to say both are recent converts but why get funky?). If you get married elsewhere and decide to move to the Empire State (did you hear Rush Limbaugh is supposed to be leaving?), state agencies will recognize your union. Heck when you catch your wife with that little tart, you can get a divorce.
So with divorce rights and support from major political hitters, it’s time for New York to get on the front lines when it comes to marriage rights. While polls seem to show that voters are supportive, it’s foolhardy to think a gay marriage push would be a walk in the park. Just ask Senate speaker Malcolm Smith. The topic almost killed his leadership bid and he announced at an early February Human Rights Campaign that there are not enough votes for a gay marriage bill to pass the state Senate.
While I have no reason to doubt Smith, it is a bit irksome there seems to be all of this support but little action. Maybe that’s a good trick to keep people mollified (”Oh we love the idea of gay marriage but our hands are tied”). Yes New York has other concerns, like most state’s the budget is in tatters, but once the budget is “fixed” will there be more excuses? Will there be a state wide problem that will require couples to wait a few more years?
Time to put all that support to some concrete use.
I’m going to be cynical about it. Even if it weren’t for the downturn in the economy, the dems would find another way to delay passing legislation. I don’t expect anything to happen by 2012 and maybe beyond. I think New Jersey will have it before we do. We’re not the progressive state that we like to pride ourselves on unlike others. Iowa was astounding and exceptional. Don’t expect anything better from NY.
By the way, the last two posts were from different Dans.
Under the circumstances, it sounds like it would be better to wait a year until the Democratic party can solidify its majority for the long term. The benefits to LGBT New Yorkers could be far-reaching and could extend to the rest of the country as well.
If a large majority of New Yorkers already support marriage equality, maybe it can be achieved sooner. With that exception, I would have to reluctantly say, let’s wait a bit – but educate and build support in the meantime.
James, why do you keep using the term “gay marriage” ?? It is MARRIAGE EQUALITY that we want, and MARRIAGE EQUALITY bills that we need.
As per my comment above.
Enough with the blatant outright lies.
Equality or not one dollar or minute of support.
Tell people like Michael Rogers who hoodwinks you into partisan antigay violence that enough is enough.
Whatever your party affiliation, no equal rights is no support. No money. No GOTV. NO nothing.
When the fascist minded Democrats finally accept the U.S. Constiution’s protections for equality regardless of sex it will happen.
But the lemmings (who overwhelmingly self-identify with the Democratic Party) prefer to screech and yell at anyone who doesn’t join their particular party prefer to put political party over gay rights.
You can hear them howling at the moon over my comment alone.
Their thinking is that a political party (Conservative Republican judges gave Iowans and everyone in the U.S. marriage rights) is moar important than gayhood.
We now see who the bigots and liars are.
NYS is an unholy mess. It perpetuates a Gordian Knot of local government, and by transferring tax revenue from Greater NYC to Upstate, keeps places like Buffalo from complete collapse. Not unlike Georgia, it’s a constant and frequently ugly dance between The Big City and The Small Town. The Small Town usually wins, not least because NYC is so big that some municipal functions would be state functions anywhere else.
New York is like several other states–New Jersey, PA, Ohio and Michigan all come to mind–in that all of them have layers of local government that can be incomprehensible. In New York, your services may be provided by the county, by the town, by the incorporated municipality, by the school district, or by some special district. Hempstead is a town in Nassau county, but it’s overlaid by both school districts and incorporated towns. Public transit is provided by MTA, a regional agency chartered by the state. Confused? Every one of those local governments is getting some money from Smallbany. When you get up north to Syracuse or Buffalo, the power of patronage hires in all those different governments means political power, and they’re pretty much the only job game in town because Upstate’s economies are at least as bad as the City was in the mid-70s. So you get some hilljack Senate Speaker, like the former one, and he agrees to dole out state money in the Bronx in return for not being challenged for his opposition to gay marriage. Greater NYC is 2/3 of NYS, but shaking up the antigay status quo also has Downstate ramifications; if Downstate says too much about all the corruption in Smallbany, then Downstate’s own dirt comes under scrutiny (Nassau County is often considered most corrupt in US), which brings large tax increases to make up for the funny money. So, in New York State, lack of gay equality has more to do with criminal state budgetary standards, local nepotism and geo-economic division than it does with real moral opposition.
For Democrats in New York, maintaining control of the Senate has to be the top priority. For decades, legislative districts in New York were drawn in such a way that the Assembly would always be Democratic and the Senate would always be Republican. Thanks to the economic crisis and Obama’s coattails, Democrats managed to get a very slim majority in the Senate. If they can hold that majority in the 2010 elections, they will control the redistricting process, and Democrats will get a larger majority in the Senate.
I would love for New York to get gay marriage soon, but I think we’re going to have to be patient about this one. Democratic State Senators from swing districts really don’t want to be sticking their necks out right now. I can’t blame them. Control of the legislature for the next forty years is at stake.