“It has always been my intention to see same-sex marriage come to the floor,” Gov. Patterson said. “I don’t want there to be any confusion.”

During the same press conference, Patterson announced plans to call the Senate to a special session on Tuesday, after trying unsuccessfully for two weeks to broker a compromise in a leadership battle that has deadlocked the chamber.

Paterson, who has been a supporter of gay rights in the past and will be serving as one of the Grand Marshals in this year’s New York Pride Parade, received criticism and concern from gay rights groups Sunday after his staff would not say whether same-sex marriage would continue to be a priority.

“Not to include marriage for same-sex couples as a priority for Tuesday’s extraordinary session is an insult to millions of gay and lesbian people and their families,” said Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the gay right’s group Empire State Pride Agenda, in a written statement issued after the governor’s press conference Sunday afternoon.

“This is getting a little ridiculous,” Paterson said Wednesday as he pledged to work with whoever wins. “They’ve got to act like adults.”

Meanwhile, the Senate Democratic conference, which appeared to lose its majority Monday to a coalition of Republicans and dissident Democrats, said it would seek a temporary court order to stop the takeover.

Paterson spoke two days after Republicans and the rogue Democrats secretly engineered a parliamentary power play, apparently ousting the Senate leader and flipping control of the chamber. Sens. Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens joined with the Republican minority to form a bipartisan 32-30 majority.

Shocked, the Senate Democrats responded by leaving the floor, locking the doors to the Senate chamber and refusing to open them. The insurgents reacted by threatening to hold a session in a nearby park if necessary.

“The Senate majority is fully prepared to go back to the people’s work but will not enter the chamber to be governed by unlawful rules,” said Austin Shafran, spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Malcolm Smith.

Paterson added to the pressure on Democratic leaders Wednesday, calling on them to open the chambers and vote on the leadership – even thought it could mean his fellow Democrats would be forced to relinquish power. Shortly after the governor’s press conference, Espada announced that he had the keys to the chamber. He refused to say how he got them.

Espada said Wednesday that Monserrate assured him he is still a part of the coalition, and neither is leaving to rejoin the Democratic conference. He said the leadership issue doesn’t require another vote and will stand up to any challenge.

“The only issue is how the Senate Democrats’ minority will respond today,” he said.

He said other Democratic senators will be joining the coalition, but it’s up to them to say so.

“I am president pro tem of the new coalition government. Period. End of story,” Espada said.

Paterson said he hopes his fellow Democrats prevail in the dispute over leadership. He called for returning attention to the big issues facing the state.

A spokesman for Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos didn’t return calls for comment.

On Monday, the coalition voted to approve hastily introduced measures that changed the leadership structure. Neither Espada nor Monserrate changed party affiliation, but their votes helped the measures pass 32-0 after the rest of the Democratic conference left the chamber or refused to vote.

No one knows for sure whether the power grab will hold. Democrats assumed the majority in January for the first time in decades.

(Albany, New York) Caroline Kennedy has ended her quest for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, halting a campaign that began with popular support but withered quickly over criticism about her experience and her reluctance to answer questions about her finances.

Kennedy made the announcement in a terse statement released early Thursday, ending hours of uncertainty surrounding her intentions as she appeared to waver in her decision to seek the office.

“I informed Governor Paterson today that for personal reasons I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the United States Senate,” she said in the one-sentence statement.

Her spokesman, Stefan Friedman, wouldn’t comment further. A spokesman for Gov. David Paterson, who will make the appointment to the open seat, also would not comment.

The U.S. Senate seat was once held by Kennedy’s assassinated uncle, Bobby Kennedy, and her initial announcement that she wanted to be considered was met with both excitement from supporters and skepticism from those who maintained that she was simply trading on her famous name to get into public office.

Her uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy, suffered a seizure Tuesday at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. The veteran lawmaker has been treated for an aggressive brain tumor.

The New York Times cited a source it didn’t identify as saying his niece withdrew out of concern for her uncle and his illness. But the New York Post, which was the first to report his niece’s withdrawal from the Senate contest, cited an unidentified source as saying she dropped out because she learned Paterson had decided not to choose her.

The Associated Press initially reported Kennedy had withdrawn from the race Wednesday evening, but corrected the story about an hour later after the person who gave that information said it was an error. Kennedy later issued her statement saying that she would withdraw, hours after Clinton became head of the U.S. State Department.

Kennedy’s decision boosted the chances of several other candidates, including Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who surpassed Kennedy in statewide polls last week.

Paterson said Cuomo had outstanding credentials for the job. Cuomo was the housing secretary under President Bill Clinton. Cuomo was elected attorney general in 2006 and has since led national reforms in the student loan industry and had a role in reining in corporate spending on Wall Street.

Cuomo is also the most popular elected politician in New York in polls – higher than Paterson, whose approval rating, while still high, has been slipping.

Paterson has asked potential candidates to respond to a 28-page questionnaires. The forms ask about personal finances and other background issues, many of which Kennedy has long shielded from the public.

Kennedy, an author, lawyer and fundraiser for New York City schools, has long guarded her privacy, and the questionnaires were expected to include some closely guarded Kennedy financial data. Paterson had said he thought the candidates’ responses would be confidential because it was his personal request that they fill them out.

But the state’s open-government expert and good-government groups told the AP that once the forms were written and submitted to the governor at least some of the responses would be subject to public review under the state Freedom of Information Law.

Kennedy jumped to the top of statewide polls in early December, but her public support waned following a brief upstate tour and a few press interviews.

She was criticized as reluctant to answer questions, and her knowledge of New York and its issues were suspect. She was also mocked nationwide for her frequent use of “you know” and “um” in interviews and was branded a lackluster campaigner.

In addition to Cuomo, other contenders include Reps. Carolyn Maloney, of New York City, and Steve Israel, of Long Island, along with a strong upstate candidate, Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, whose district runs along the Hudson Valley. Other hopefuls among the 10 or 20 Paterson said were under consideration include U.S. Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Brian Higgins and Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.

The Kennedy reports came hours after Maloney, some Democrats’ top choice, was named chair of the Joint Economic Committee in Congress. That’s a significant move because Paterson had made it clear the next senator’s top job should be to help land a federal stimulus package to help New York out of its historic fiscal crisis.

“Members of an elected official’s staff should never distract from the work of the principal who they are privileged to serve,” chief of staff Charles O’Byrne wrote in a letter to Paterson. “It is clear to me that my personal history has become a distraction to the work of your administration.”

Paterson wrote O’Byrne that he accepts the resignation, effective Friday, with regret.

O’Byrne, who has ties to the Kennedy family, has said clinical depression kept him from paying taxes between 2001 and 2005, before he took the job as secretary to the governor.

O’Byrne’s problems were first made public in the New York Post on Saturday and O’Byrne has been fighting mounting pressure since then to keep his $178,500-a-year job. On Tuesday, lawyers for O’Byrne sought to end the controversy by releasing tax data but ended up intensifying the criticism when they blamed the delay on “nonfiler syndrome” related to his depression. One of the tax attorneys said it was a common mental health problem for professionals, but mental health and IRS officials said they never heard of it.

Paterson administration officials didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

O’Byrne, a former Jesuit priest who officiated at the wedding of John F. Kennedy Jr. and counseled the Kennedy family three years later after he died in a plane crash, was officially the secretary to the governor, but his duties included those of chief of staff. He was responsible for mapping out policy and politics as Paterson rose from the near powerless Democratic minority in the Senate to lieutenant governor and then governor after Democrat Eliot Spitzer resigned in March amid a prostitution scandal.

O’Byrne’s resignation is a blow to an administration that has fought one crisis after another, beginning with Spitzer’s resignation after just 14 months, much of which was spent in gridlock after fights with the Republican-led state Senate.

Since then, Paterson, with O’Byrne, has convinced the Legislature to cut Spitzer’s last budget, decreased spending in the executive branch by 10 percent and warned of dire fiscal problems months before Wall Street’s meltdown.

Paterson appointed veteran political staffer and adviser Bill Cunningham as acting secretary to the governor.

Newsom will host a fundraising event with New York State Gov. David Paterson. Tickets are going for $5,000 per person.

Paterson has been a longtime supporter of marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.  The New York Assembly last year passed a marriage equality bill, but it has stalled in the GOP-dominated Senate.

In 2004, Newsom began allowing marriage licenses to be issued to same-sex couples in San Francisco. The state took the mayor to court arguing he had overstepped his authority and the California Supreme Court agreed. As a result, more than 8,000 marriages were declared void. 

The ruling, however, did not directly address the issue of the constitutionality of the state ban on same-sex marriage, so LGBT civil rights activists began a separate court action challenging the prohibition.

In May, the court court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to wed violated the California constitution.

Conservative groups began collecting enough signatures for a ballot measure, known as Proposition 8, to amend the constitution to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples.  It will appear on the November ballot.

Since then, according to state records, supporters of Prop 8 have raised $17.8 million. Opponents of the measure have brought in $12.4 million. Much of the money on both sides has come from out-of-state.

This week, the “NO on 8″ committee released its first television ad featuring an elderly man and wife who urge voters to not eliminate their gay daughter’s right to marry.

Sam and Julia Thoron of San Francisco say in the commercial that they have been married for 46 years, and raised three children.

“My wife and I never treated them differently,” said Sam Thoron in the spot. “We never loved them any differently, and the law shouldn’t treat them differently either.”

The commercial is being aired on television stations throughout the state.

The battle is also being fought on lawns statewide.  Signs are popping up in front of homes both in favor and against the measure throughout California.

On Monday, director Steven Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw gave $100,000 to the “NO on 8″ campaign, matching a $100,000 donation last week from actor Brad Pitt.

“By writing discrimination into our state constitution, Proposition 8 seeks to eliminate the right of each and every citizen in our state to marry regardless of sexual orientation,” Spielberg said in a statement. “Such discrimination has NO place in California’s constitution, or any other.”

Recent polls suggest that California voters are likely to reject the proposed amendment. A Field Poll last week found that only about 38 percent of likely voters would support the measure.

“The governor should respect New York’s marriage laws over the laws of foreign jurisdictions.  Governor Paterson is overstepping his authority and the democratic process by issuing a directive at odds with New York public policy on marriage,” said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Brian Raum.

The Arizona-based ADF is involved in lawsuits fighting LGBT issues across the country.

“The governor has no authority to issue directives which conflict with New York’s public policy.  His actions are an assault on the democratic process,” Raum argued in Supreme Court, the lowest level court in New York state.

“The future of marriage should be decided by the legislature, not executives who take matters into their own hands,” Raum argued.

“New Yorkers have a fundamental right to set marriage policy through the legislative process, but the governor has ordered a radical redefinition of marriage without the consent of the governed.  Ignoring the democratic process does not help the government in its duty to promote and encourage strong families.”

NYS attorney’s representing Paterson argued that the governor was within his constitutional rights to issue directives to state agencies over which he has legal authority. They asked the judge to dismiss the case.

The court gave no indication when it might rule.  It is likely the case will be argued up to the Court of Appeal, New York’s highest court.

Paterson issued his directive in May after a midlevel appeals court ruled that a gay couple’s marriage in Canada should be recognized in New York State.

Neither the ruling nor Paterson’s directive allowed for same-sex couples to marry in New York. Both were limited to marriages performed only in California and Massachusetts and in countries which have legalized gay marriage.

In 2006, the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ruled that same-sex couples do not have an automatic constitutional right to marry in the state. It said that the issue, however, could be taken up by the Legislature.

Last year, the Democratically-controlled New York State Assembly passed same-sex marriage legislation, but the GOP-controlled Senate has refused to take up the bill.

Among the Republican lawmakers represented by the ADF in the lawsuit is state Assembly minority leader James Tedisco.