N.Y. Senate Set to Vote on Marriage Equality
After endless drama and delay, lawmakers in New York are seemingly set to vote on marriage equality. Marriage equality bills have passed the Assembly, three times--most recently in the early morning hours of Dec. 2--but have not as yet been voted on by the state Senate. That may be about to change: a marriage bill has passed out of committee in the senate and now awaits action on the floor, a Dec. 2 New York Times article reported.
The article noted that Democratic state lawmakers hold a majority of the seats in the Senate, but that is no guarantee of success for the measure since some Democrats have already said they would not support marriage equality. One of the most vociferous opponents to allowing gay families marriage has been state Senator and evangelical pastor Ruben Diaz, who was still working to defeat the measure on Dec. 1, a New York Daily News article from that day reported.
However, supporters of the measure believe that they may have enough Republican votes to allow the measure to pass. If that should happen, Gov. Paterson has promised to sign the bill--making New York the sixth state in the union to extend full family equality on the state level to gay and lesbian residents.
The anti-gay New York State Catholic Conference had already vowed to oppose marriage equality, with the organization's executive director, Richard E. Barnes, stating, "In the last several years, voters in 31 states have taken up the issue of changing the timeless definition of marriage and 31 times they have voted to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman."
Had voters not repealed marriage equality in California in 2008 and in Maine last month, New York would have been the eighth state. However, unlike those states, should New York pass marriage equality, there is no mechanism in place that would allow a ballot initiative to strip that right from gay and lesbian families once again.
The measure's swift progress came as a surprise, given that state lawmakers had said that they insist that a bill to reduce the state's $3 billion-plus deficit would have to be settled before they would take up marriage equality. On Dec. 1, unable to come up with a compromise budget, lawmakers for the day without having taken votes on either measure. Lawmakers anticipated focusing on the state budget when the session reconvened the following day, reported a Dec. 2 New York Times article. The office of Gov. David Paterson and State Sen. Carl Kruger traded barbs, sniping at one another about politically motivated "foot dragging" over the budget. Whether or not such deliberate obstruction is truly emanating from either the governor or the state senate, the issue of marriage equality is unlikely to be addressed before the budget is resolved, since some lawmakers have insisted that a bill to reduce the state's deficit be settled first.
Paterson, who told the media that the "roadblocks" for a marriage vote had been "cleared away," indicated his displeasure at the thought that some state senators might draw out the budget bill's progress to derail a vote on the marriage equality bill, a Dec. 2 article in local newspaper The Hour reported. "I don't think that issues stand anywhere but on their own and that these issues deserve a vote up or down," Paterson said. "So for anyone who has tried to influence my position on the [deficit plan] because they know I am interested in passing marriage equality, I think that is a grotesque twist of justice and a rather insensitive way to lobby here in New York state."
After the close of the regular legislative sessions, marked this year by dramatic reversals including a de facto coup by a number of the senate's Democrats, Paterson had called the state senate back into special sessions explicitly to address the issue of marriage equality. Even though the measure may well fail, supporters say that a senate vote will clarify where lawmakers stand on the issue.