Albany, NY – After a second day of a lobbying blitz and propelled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s personal buttonholing of GOP senators, a measure to legalize gay marriage in New York drew to within one vote of passing, with at least two more Republicans still undecided.
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On Tuesday, a second Republican senator said he would support Cuomo’s same-sex marriage bill, less than two years after he was part of a GOP-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. Several 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.”
Fellow GOP Sens. Mark Grisanti of Erie County and Stephen Saland of Poughkeepsie said they were undecided on the issue.
“It has nothing do with politics,” Gristanti told The Buffalo News.
Said Saland, who voted against the measure in 2009: “My phone has been flying off the hook, both ways.”
Saland said he knows of no other Republican senators planning to support same-sex marriage. But Cuomo, a Democrat, has met constantly with them, 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.
“It’s certainly closer, but nobody else has told me they are definitely going to vote for it,” Skelos said.
The measure, for the fourth time in two years, is expected to easily pass in the Democrat-led Assembly, where Speaker Sheldon Silver said he believes Cuomo has secured enough votes for passage in the Senate.
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, D.C., 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, and recent polls have shown New Yorkers slightly less supportive of gay marriage as the issue gained more attention this year.
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.
The governor’s bill doesn’t include all the additional religious exemptions Republicans sought. Republicans want churches, religious groups and individuals opposed to gay marriage exempted from performing or hosting gay marriages.
“I think if the governor pays real respect to the need for religious carve-outs and builds that into this bill, creating a clear definition between civil marriage and religious marriage, it’s going to take the wind out of the sales of people like Jason McGuire who are against the bill,” Republican Sen. Greg Ball said.
McGuire, an Elmira pastor and president of the New Yorkers Family Research Foundation, says gay marriage damages children.
A Siena College poll Monday found 55 percent of New Yorkers support gay marriage, a decline from 58 percent in April. Just 14 percent of New Yorkers said gay marriage should be the top priority of the Legislature. The poll questioned 819 registered voters June 5-8 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
“1. Call your State Senator especially if your (in Carl Kruger’s and Andrew Lanza’s (Staten Island) district) and leave the message that you are deeply opposed to legalizing same-gender marriage we will be watching to see how the Senator votes on this important issue and are votes depend on it. To be connected to your State Senator, or if you don’t know who your State Senator is, call the Senate operator at 518-455-2800.
“2. Call Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (518-455-3171), and leave the message that, as leader of the Republican majority in the State Senate, he should make every effort to ensure that the Senate continues to stand firm against same-gender marriage. Also tell him that the biggest reason Jews have been voting Republican is because of social values and that saving marriage is the most important social value and if this CV passes we may (or will) vote democrat.
it’s assur to rely on nissiem.
The bill will pass tomorrow or Friday and will be signed next week by the Governor. its time for yidden to move on and focus on really imortant issues rather than trying to impose our halacha on others who obviously reject our values. Lets concentrate on jobs for our boys and girls, better educations, neighborhood facilities etc. and get out of monitoring other peoples’ bedroom behavior.
I’m not convinced that Yiden should be involved to block or avoid this vote to come thru in favor of this freaken non sense,including ‘Aguda’ , I don’t see where Yiden should get effected if it passes, it just comes to show you how shamefull and sub-low ALL politicians are! Wiener is a low life that you KNOW but they’re all the same dirty and low class! !
By putting all the political resources of the frum community into blocking this issue, we will lose potential clout on really important issues. Get over your hangups on gay marriage. Its a reality throughout the U.S. and doesn’t affect us as much as poverty, lack of jobs and educational opportunities, housing etc. Lets focus on tomorrow’s issues, not yesterday’s losing battles.
we are Yidden, a light on to the Nations. Do not forget why we are on this world-not for money, but to spread the true way. And you bet this will be held against us if we do not get involved!
I would like to marry my horse.Would that be ok.
Sen. Roy McDonald of Saratoga County said: “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.”
NONSENSE!
Every responsible and sensible person knows that these homosexual relationships are not healthy. To create a law and make it legal and approved by a government just shows how little these so-called lawmakers care about the public’s health and welfare. How little they care about terminology and definitions, and HOW MUCH they care about votes, money and power.
What does ‘marriage’ mean? Go tell young children that same-sex couples constitutes a marriage.
Next Miriam-Webster, and others, will have to amend their next dictionary.
Marriage: Two men, or two women, constitutes one type of marriage.
Partnership: Who knows?
‘The 7 Noahide Laws,’ NOW, not craven, greedy, heartless politicians.
Do the esteemed readers of VIN honestly and truthfully believe in their hearts that a member (or members) of their shuls will have the courage to approach their rabbis and ask them to be ‘mesader kidushin’ for their gay nuptials?
From where I am sitting, the chances of that happening are less than infinitesimal. In other words, it ain’t going to happen – ever. If such people really feel a need to mark their “union” they will go for a civil partnership, knowing that they can be discreet and not upset any member of the yiddishe establishment. In fact, their rabbanim and/or rashei yeshivos need never know.
It’s time to move on, morai verabossai, and fight battles that are both winnable and relevant to our circumstances and way of life. Trying to force our hashkafa and middos on people who do not identify with orthodox Judaism is (literally) bitul Torah and bitul zeman.
Strongly agree with #5 .
To #7 : I do not wish on anybody to see their child or grandchild’s gay wedding.
That is not Yiddishe nachos. That is the end of the line.
Thank you #1 for the numbers. I will call, even if it’s just because I do not want to hear one day: “But zeidy, didn’t you vote for this?”
Happy summer and much Yiddishe nachos to all.
I think it’s a bit strange that the same leftists who worked so hard to destroy the very concept of marriage by taking away any stigma attached to having children out of wedlock are now busy convincing gay people that they need to get married in order to be fulfilled. In the end, this isn’t about gay people getting married– it’s about another attempt to undermine anything resembling family values in this country. Having said that, while I don’t support gay marriage, it’s just not that big a deal. Nobody’s going to make me marry a gay person, nor will my rabbi be obliged to perform these ceremonies.
This is ridiculous. Why should we care if gay people marry other gay people? Why are people so fixated on this? I contacted Skelos to encourage him to let it come to a vote already. Marriage equality doesn’t hurt us. Unless we’re closeted gay people, in which case, that’s our problem. Which I do suspect sometimes when people are so intense about this one issue. Maybe they wish they, too, could live openly.
Firstly, I’ve never seen anyone here rave about or worry about sharia law. That circumstance is a product of your imagination.
Secondly, sheva mitzvos bnei noach is not OUR morality, it’s THEIR obligation.
They (your avg goy) may not be aware of it, but it’s their responsibility to keep it and their loss if they don’t.
Us reminding them is a favor to them and possibly a responsibility of ours to do.
As citizens of a democracy we have every right to express and vote for our beliefs and creeds; that is not in any way an imposition of OUR morality on anyone, especially as we believe it is primarily in THEIR interest.