Asia-Pacific
NY gay marriage gains support in state Senate
(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-06-15 09:37
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ALBANY, New York -?After a second day of a lobbying blitz and propelled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's personal appeal to Republican state senators, a measure to legalize gay marriage in New York drew to within one vote of passing.
On Tuesday, a second Republican state senator said he would support Cuomo's same-sex marriage bill, less than two years after he was part of a Republican-led defeat of a similar bill that dealt a blow to the national effort to legalize gay marriage.
In New York, Sen. Roy McDonald of Saratoga County announced he would vote for gay marriage, creating a 31-31 tie, resulting in no law. Thirty-two votes are needed to pass a bill in the 62-seat chamber that has a slim Republican majority. Several Republican senators, however, still haven't committed to a vote that could happen Friday, what could be the final day of the legislative session.
"My vote is going to be for marriage," McDonald said. "I think it's compassion, trying do the right thing, trying to get everyone to live together."
"Our big state is big enough for everybody," he said.
When told McDonald would support gay marriage, Republican Sen. William Larkin of Orange County responded, "Shocking."
Cuomo, a Democrat, has met constantly with Republican senators, including an evening at the governor's mansion and in private meetings. Several Republicans described Cuomo's pitch as passionate and persuasive.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Long Island Republican who opposes gay marriage, said his conference will make a decision in a closed-door meeting, likely on Wednesday. If it does, he said a floor vote would likely be Friday.
The measure, for the fourth time in two years, is expected to easily pass in the Democrat-led Assembly.
Each side of the gay-marriage debate in Albany is funded by more than $1 million from national and state advocates being used in media blitzes and in promised campaign cash for lawmakers who side with them. The effort, organized by Cuomo, drew three Democratic senators and one Republican, Sen. James Alesi of Monroe County, to the cause on Monday.
The sole Democratic senator opposed to the bill, the Rev. Ruben Diaz Sr. of the Bronx, continues to drum up opposition, saying it's his calling.
New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan blogged Tuesday that approving gay marriage is akin to a communist country redefining other basic human rights.
"In those countries, government presumes to 'redefine' rights, relationships, values and natural law," Dolan said. He said "courageous" senators are facing a "stampede" of lobbying to change their votes. "But, please, not here! Our country's founding principles speak of rights given by God, not invented by government."
Same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, DC, but the effort has flagged since the defeat in New York. Opponents are bolstered by defeats of similar bills in Maryland and Rhode Island this year,
"Hundreds of thousands of other New Yorkers, like me, are treated like second-class citizens," said "Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon in her latest lobbying in Albany. She said Tuesday she's been engaged to another woman for seven years but unable to marry in her home state.
"It's time we treat all committed couples equally," said Sean Avery, a New York Ranger ice hockey player and one of several professional athletes and celebrities who have pressed for gay marriage.
Cuomo said his bill is "roughly" the same as the one beaten back in 2009 in a Senate then led by Democrats. Republicans won a 32-30 majority in 2010.
A Siena College poll Monday found 55 percent of New Yorkers support gay marriage, a decline from 58 percent in April. The poll questioned 819 registered voters June 5-8 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
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