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发帖数: 19713 | 1 DECISION TIME All Eyes on Senate in New York
By Julie Bolcer
RAINBOW FLAG ON POLE IN NEW YORK (GETTY) ADVOCATE.COM
Pride flag hangs in New York on Tuesday.
The New York state legislature could adjourn as early as Wednesday, but it
remains unclear whether the state senate will bring the marriage equality
bill to a vote.
Republican state senators, in whose power the decision rests, are scheduled
to meet Wednesday morning in Albany, where they could decide whether to
bring the marriage equality bill to the floor for a vote. Since last week,
the bill, which would legalize same-sex civil marriage in New York, has
stood one vote shy of passage in the senate, where the decisive vote must
come from a Republican. The Democratic-controlled assembly passed the bill
for the fourth time last week.
On Tuesday, lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo made progress on other
outstanding business, leaving marriage equality as the final major item on
the agenda. The Republican majority and the governor are said to be
negotiating the religious exemptions in the bill, although language has yet
to materialize.
Cuomo told reporters Tuesday evening that he remained “cautiously
optimistic” the bill would pass. Saying that New York was “on the cusp of
historic progress,” he urged senators to vote, saying that the people were
entitled to an up-or-down vote.
That sentiment seemed different from the governor’s earlier statements that
he and advocates only wanted a vote that would succeed, but Cuomo
maintained that his words expressed a long-held strategy of turning up the
heat on the issue.
“We early on said we’re not going to advance a bill unless we’re
confident that it has a good chance of success,” he said. “Not that you
know it’s going to succeed, because you never know until the vote is
actually cast. But we’ve reached the point, the threshold where we believe
there was a high likelihood of success, we felt good about the chances of
success, so then we moved the bill.”
Last week, when Cuomo produced five more senate votes for the bill,
including three Democrats and two Republicans who voted no in 2009, the
political burden shifted to the Republicans. The conference, which holds a
slim 32 to 30 majority, must make a calculation that balances conscience and
its political future.
Anticipation of a decision follows a day marked by rallying for the bill,
with an estimated 500 advocates from across the state brought to Albany in
less than 24 hours’ notice by the New Yorkers United for Marriage coalition
. The crowd heard from elected officials including James Alesi, the first
Republican state senator to announce his support for the marriage equality
bill.
More crowds, many from the religious perspective, are expected once again at
the capitol Wednesday when the issue culminates on what may be the last day
of the legislative session. The National Organization for Marriage, which
issued a slanted poll on Tuesday, is calling for demonstrators, and New
Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a group representing Protestant
evangelicals that also opposes the bill, has announced an appearance at the
state capitol by an “ex-gay” spokesman, Anthony Falzarano. |
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