It might be cold outside, but Andrew Cuomo's affair with voters is heating up. The second Cuomo to lead New York currently boasts a mammoth 70 percent approval rating (the highest he's scored since he was Attorney General and hit 71% in June 2009). Even better for the frugal gov, more than half of voters consider him a moderate. Which has some wondering if Cuomo is going to use his honeymoon with voters to try and bring weddings to gay New Yorkers.

Cuomo has spoken out for gay marriage previously (and gave it a one line nod in his State of the State) but the impetus for the current scuttlebutt is his hiring of Erik Bottcher, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's former liaison to the gay community, for a brand new cabinet post. "Erik's intellect and experience will be an invaluable asset in the fight to restore New York as the progressive capital of the nation," Cuomo said of Bottcher, who also served as his liaison to the LGBT community in the election and will now be the special assistant for community affairs. But do note that his new job doesn't necessarily directly deal with the LGBT issues.

Of course getting gay equality through in New York is still going to be a tricky proposition. The last time the issue went before the State Senate, at the end of 2009, it was rejected 28-24. And it isn't like Cuomo doesn't have a whole lot of other issues on his plate (we are at a crossroads, after all, with budgets to balance and unions to fight) but still, it'd be nice if normally gay-friendly New York could catch up with, well, Iowa.