New York State Becomes Crucial Marriage-Equality Battlefield
After last week's setback in Maine for gay and lesbian families seeking marriage parity, the battle looks to be moving to New York State. Gov. David Paterson has said that he will call a special session of the State Senate to take up a measure passed earlier this year by the Assembly to grant marriage equality to all New York families.
Even if the measure comes to a vote, it's unclear whether there are enough votes to see the measure pass. What happens here has become crucially important to the marriage movement in light of defeats in California and Maine. A win in a major state like New York would give the movement a huge boost.
A Nov. 8 New York Times article noted that despite a Democratic majority in the Senate, the 32 votes needed to advance the law may be hard to come by since not all of the chamber's 32 Democratic lawmakers are in favor if granting equal marriage rights to gay and lesbian families. There may be Republican support in the Senate for the bill, but none of the 30 Republican state senators has as yet gone on record as supporting the measure.
Marriage equality advocates insist that even if they lose this round in New York, this is the time to take the pulse of the politicians in the Senate, before next year's election.
"There is a school of thought which says that unless you have 32 votes, you shouldn't pull a bill on the floor," said Pedro Espada, Jr., the Senate's majority leader. "There's also an equally valid school of thought that says we should put it up for a vote and live with the results."
Said Matt Foreman, "The stakes are much higher now, following Maine, and it would be an enormous boost to the movement to prevail in New York." However, added Foreman, former head of the Task Force and the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state's main gay political arm, "if we don't win marriage in New York in this special session, it's going to be a very hard lift next year."
The measure passed the Assembly partially due to the passionate personal testimony of openly gay Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell, brother of lesbian entertainer Rosie O'Donnell. "We will never be assured in the State Senate," he said. "Waiting for that is like waiting for Godot," he said.
The article noted that regional politics apart from a ballot initiative in Maine that rescinded marriage equality in that state have also made the issue a harder sell. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine lost his bid for re-election last week, despite voicing support for marriage equality in that state; and in a race for a New York seat in Congress, a pro-equality Republican candidate was pushed into withdrawing by fellow GOP politicians.
Anti-gay social and religious conservatives have hailed the Maine result as a victory for "natural marriage." In New York, there is a sense among those opposed to family parity for gays and lesbians that momentum on the issue--which appeared to be gaining traction earlier this year--has stalled.
"I think we're starting from a position of strength," said Jason J. McGuire, head of the anti-gay marriage group New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms. "I don't believe they have the votes, and [the special session is] an act of desperation. Our position is to maintain the votes we have, and people are certainly in contact with our senators and we are encouraging that. This is not going to pass."
But as an editorial in the previous day's edition of the New York Times noted, there is little certainty when it comes to the issue. Fears that gay and lesbian families wold swiftly lose all rights in a series of initiatives similar to Proposition 8 were not immediately realized. Rather, several additional states, including Maine, approved marriage equality. In the case of Prop. 8, California voters approved the ban last year that rescinded marriage equality while leaving intact 18,000 same-sex couples that had already availed themselves of it and wedded,
Moreover, last week's election brought victory to several openly gay politicians around the country. Voters endorsed protections for GLBTs and their families in Kalamazoo, Mich. And in Washington State, voters reaffirmed domestic partnership privileges and protections.
Noted the New York Times editorial, "Fights for justice rarely follow a linear path. Maine voters have approved anti-gay measures in the past only to reverse themselves in a subsequent election. We trust they will do so again on the issue of same-sex marriage."
Another editorial, published Nov. 6 at Newsday.com, pointed up the need for the state's lawmakers to give the issue its day on the floor. Marriage equality is "complicated by visceral concerns like individual rights, religious beliefs and even notions about the underpinnings of civilization," the editorial stated. "It isn't partisan. It's personal."
For the Senate to take a vote would be "leadership," the editorial asserted. "Unfortunately," it added, "that's not how it works in Albany, where votes on tough issues are routinely delayed until party leaders are sure of the outcome. That won't do here."
Added the editorial, "The public shouldn't just wake up one morning to discover that gay marriage has been legalized or rejected. There are important questions to be answered.... Same-sex marriage is contentious. But in most states, officials have found the courage to make a decision, whether by legislation, referendum or judicial fiat.... However messy the process, democracy demands up or down votes. New York's senators should stop ducking their responsibility."
New York State Senator Liz Krueger, who represents part of Manhattan, wrote in The Huffington Post on Nov. 6 that "I strongly support marriage equality as a basic civil rights issue. I know that there are a significant number of senators who do not support the bill, but believe it is our duty as a legislative body to have a meaningful debate on marriage equality and give every Senator an opportunity to publicly vote his or her conscience on this critical issue."
Krueger noted that disparities exist in the state's laws, relegating some families to a lesser status. "In such areas as property ownership, inheritance, health care, hospital visitation, taxation, insurance coverage, child custody, pension benefits and testimonial privileges, married couples have a host of important rights and protections. Denying gays and lesbians access to those benefits--as well as the many responsibilities which come with civil marriage--is a violation of the basic principle of equal protection."
Senator Krueger went on to enumerate the two most frequently cited arguments against family parity, writing, "Those who argue against marriage equality usually base their arguments either on 1) religious grounds or 2) on their belief that marriage should be reserved for relationships centered around procreation and child rearing. The first argument fails to recognize both the separation of church and state and the fact that many denominations do in fact already recognize same sex marriages. The second argument is just plain silly."
Sen. Krueger went on to note that a civil law granting marriage to same-sex couple would not impact marriage as a religious covenant. "Religious institutions already choose who can or cannot get married within their denominations for both same and opposite sex marriages and they would continue to do so," she noted. "The only institution which would be required to recognize same-sex marriages would be the state.
"Similarly, family- and procreation-based arguments fail to recognize how many same-sex couples are in fact raising children, as well as how many opposite-sex married couples are not," Krueger added. "Marriage equality would benefit same-sex couples, but it would also provide huge benefits to their children, who would gain many protections by having their parents' relationship legally recognized."
Denying families marriage equality amounted to discrimination against those families, she maintained. Such discrimination "also harms all of us who remain living in a society where we know that we are allowing family, friends and neighbors to be discriminated against by their government."
Citizens also made their voices heard in rallies around the state. Residents of New Paltz, a mid-Hudson River college town, turned out to show their support for marriage equality. Steven Schunk told the Mid-Hudson News, "I'm a lifelong resident of the county, a businessman, an entrepreneur, a taxpayer, and I feel like a second class citizen and I'm sort of tired of it."
Ruth Lindner, a student at the State University of New York-New Paltz student, said, ""These are actual people that deserve rights, need rights, and want rights." Other young people were in attendance at the rally, Lindner said, because "these are the people that are going to be using this right in the upcoming years."
Stone Ridge, N.Y., resident Drew Minter added, "You shouldn't need a brain to figure this out. These Americans are just disenfranchised by the law as it presently is." New Paltz made headlines earlier in the decade when its young Green Party mayor married gay couples. The ensuing court battle began the marriage-rights movement in the Empire State.
In Goshen, another mid-Hudson town, a longtime same-sex couple of 16 years joined others from the community in a gathering for marriage equality. The rally had been put together by a college student named Sam Sussman, as reported Nov. 9 in the Times Herald-Record. Young Mr. Sussman is a second-generation civil rights activist who sees marriage equality as his generation's battle to win. "The matter of human, civil, and equal rights cuts right through personal sexual orientation and goes directly to the heart of who we are as a people," Sussman declared.