Source: New York Times, New York Daily News, Gay City News
ALBANY -- Money from gay rights supporters poured in from across the country to several tight Senate races after a pledge from New York Democratic leaders that their party would legalize same-sex marriage if they won control of the State Senate this year. The money helped cinch a razor-thin Democratic victory.
Democrats won 32 seats in the election, but the Republicans, who appear to have won 30, have yet to concede defeat, New York Times reports.
But now, according to the Times, party leaders have sent strong signals that they may not take up the issue during the 2009 legislative session and might even delay it until after the 2010 election.
The vote in California for Proposition 8 surprised even some of the strongest supporters of the marriage equality bill, who now think it may be too early to press the issue in New York.
"I think the California proposition and the recognition that entities with large amounts of money who oppose same-sex marriage have decided to be large players in this have a lot of people going back to the drawing board," said Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat who represents the Upper East Side.
Senator Thomas K. Duane, the Senate's leading advocate on gay and lesbian issues, told New York Times that the odds of a vote reaching the Senate floor in the 2009 legislative session are 50-50.
It's still not even clear that Democrats will gain final control over the upper chamber, because a "Gang of Three" dissident party members have refused to support the party's preferred majority leader, Senator Malcolm A. Smith of Queens.
The leadership dispute stems partly from disagreement about the marriage-equality bill and others supported by New York's LGBT lobbyists.
The Gang of Three even talked to Republicans last week about a "coalition" arrangement that would give the GOP a technical majority in the Senate, but would give plumb assignments to the dissident Democrats, New York Daily News reports.
In between negotiating the state budget and recruiting staff members, Smith is also busy trying to bring back into the fold dissidents who have threatened to back a Republican for majority leader.
At a meeting of LGBT activists last week, Duane said he wasn't "overly concerned" about the refusal of the "Gang of Three" to support Smith. Duane said Smith is "100 percent committed to same-sex civil marriage and 100 percent committed to bringing it to the floor."
But Duane and Alan Van Capelle, Empire State Pride Agenda's (ESPA) executive director, emphasized at the meeting that Republican votes for marriage equality will be needed if the bill is to pass in the Senate. Log Cabin's Jeff Cook said later, "We believe we will have Republican support, but we're not talking names yet," Gay City News reports.
The Pride Agenda keeps a running tally of the positions of senators on these and two other issues - transgender rights and a school anti-bullying bill - on its website at prideagenda.org, Gay City News reports.
Van Capelle said that while 55 percent of New Yorkers polled support opening marriage to gay couples, the more important figure to politicians is the finding that the issue was only important to 9-12 percent of voters making a decision in the booth. Many elected officials could be convinced that there is less downside to a pro-marriage vote than they might suspect.
But when a New York Times reporter tried to get comment from ESPA for its story on delay of consideration for the marriage equality bill, the organization that's known for aggressively pursuing news media attention, told the Times through a spokesman that it was in a "quiet period" and would not respond to questions.
The question of how aggressively to proceed on the marriage equality bill has touched off an intense debate among legislators and gay rights supporters about how ready the broader electorate is to embrace same-sex marriage, both in New York and across the country, New York Times reports.
Many activists and legislators are still stung by California voters' approval this month of a measure that reversed a court decision that gave gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. Heavy spending by church groups and others opposed to same-sex marriage helped the proposal win.
"We want to get there, but we want to get there the right way or else we risk setting ourselves back another decade," said Kreuger.
Source: N.Y. Democrats May Skip Gay Marriage Vote | New York Times
Dean Skelos ups ante with Gang of 3 Woos Dems to keep Senate in GOP rule | New York Daily News
For State Senate, Delay to Get a Majority Leader | New York Times
Clashing, Meshing Over Marriage | Gay City News