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Leave it to a gay marriage bill to make it feel like everyone seems to be playing for the wrong team. The Daily News is reporting that Governor Paterson is getting serious about reaching across the aisle and courting Republicans to help pass his bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New York. And who might his ace (or Gary) in the hole be? None other than former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.
Elizabeth Benjamin reports that Paterson's strategy is that a Bruno endorsement "would provide 'cover' for some Republicans to vote 'yes' on legalizing gay marriage." A source tells her, "The fact is, he has a rapport with the people they need, and he's not known for being a right-wing fanatic. This would not be inconsistent with his live-and-let-live philosophy."
After resigning from his post in the State Senate last year, Bruno has been working as a lobbyist. In 2002, he got behind the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act and helped it pass in the Senate after being stalled there for decades.
Paterson will almost certainly need help from Republicans in order to get bill through the Senate since right now six Democrats have come out and declared they would vote against it. While no GOP senators have publicly stated they would vote for it, a total of seven said they were either undecided or refused to respond to NY1's recent poll of the state senators. The News also mentions that lobbyists are reminding on-the-fence senators that no Assembly members who voted "yes" on the 2007 gay marriage bill lost reelection races last year.
As for those Democrats against the bill, the most outspoken opponent, Senator Ruben Diaz spoke to WNYC's Brian Lehrer today in a spirited interview. Lehrer continually pushed Diaz on just who "gets hurt" if marriage is allowed for gay couples. Diaz said that "everybody" did and added, "My understanding of family values gets hurt. My belief in the Bible gets hurt." He also claimed that poll numbers for New Yorkers who support gay marriage legislation have gone down in the last month "after all the education I've done."
Elsewhere today, the Supreme Court refused to review the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that prevents gays from openly serving in the military. Upon hearing the news, Diaz said that he believed it was further proof of where Americans stand and that the gay marriage issue was being forced upon us.
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if your belief in the bible is hurt every time someone disagrees with you, how do you have anything left to believe in?
I'm really starting to hope something terrible happens to this Diaz guy. Preferably involving prison and burly inmates with a taste for rape.
People like you give people like Ann Coulter ammunition.
Oh, well clearly I should just keep my mouth shut if it's going to give a tranny political commentator "ammunition"! I didn't know s/he trolled Gothamist for his/her material!
You are promoting violence against someone simply because you disagree on a political issue. You are just as bad as the people who promote violence against gays.
My point about Coulter is there are extremist idiots on both sides, you on yours and Coulter on hers.
I think you need to work on your reading comprehension. I did not advocate violence against Diaz, only that he gets what he deserves for the crimes he has committed. He is a scumbag using this issue to draw attention away from his own crimes. Advocating violence would be to suggest someone shoot him like that poor doctor in Kansas, not wish that he'd get what's coming to him under the law.
Disagreeing with you is a crime?
So we should just play nice when people like Diaz are slinging mud?
I agree with nicemarmot completely, although prison rape may be out of the question since Diaz' head is taking up too much room up his ass as it is.
Direct action is needed when there is injustice involved including animal cruelty. I don't understand why people criticize the people who do partake in direction action and don't focus their criticism on the evil doers. If it wasn't for direct action then slavery and other injustice would still exist.
What ever happened to her?
The New York Times is reporting a floor fight in the NY State Senate to displace the Democrats as the majority party.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/revolt-could-imperil-democratic-control-of-senate/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Am I crazy or does Ruben Diaz's district look like the epitome of gerrymandering? Not blaming it on him of course (there's plenty of other damning things we can point to), but it's indicative of NY politics in general.
http://www.nysenate.gov/district/32
Diaz might want to find some stronger faith if something as simple as marriage equality hurts his understanding of family values and his belief in the bible
Funny, I didn't know that someone's belief in the bible trumped equal rights for all. I must have missed that part of the Constitution.
Why do people give a shit?
They want to be married, let'em.
Better them than me.