Gay Marriage Advocates Slam Bloomberg, Cuomo For Not Doing Enough

A marriage equality rally at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y. last week. (AP/Mike Groll)

Mayor Bloomberg was in Albany yesterday with Christine Quinn to pressure State Senators to support a same-sex marriage bill. During meetings with seven Republican Senators, Bloomberg vowed to campaign for any candidate who came out for gay marriage, regardless of how they voted on any other issue. And he made the case that same-sex marriage is “entirely consistent with the G.O.P.’s core values of promoting limited government and individual liberty."

At a press conference, Bloomberg also said, "I just have never thought that it’s the government’s business to get involved in telling people who they should be married to. The longer the Senate obstructs marriage equality, the heavier the price they will pay not only in the history books, but at the polls." The mayor vowed to put at least $100,000 of his own money to the effort. “Marriage equality is going to happen eventually,” Bloomberg said. “It is just not a matter of if. It is purely at this point a matter of when….The longer the Senate obstructs marriage equality the heavier the price they will pay, not only in the history books, but at the polls."

Times columnist Clyde Haberman notes that the promise to campaign on candidates' behalf may not be much of a sweetener; Bloomberg endorsed six Republican candidates for the State Senate last election, and four of them lost. And he's not threatening to cut off campaign donations to those who don't vote his way on gay marriage. "The real world is, you cannot pick one issue and say it’s all or nothing," the mayor said. That strategy disappointed gay Manhattan Democratic Senator Thomas Duane, who told NY1, "I think it’s sad that he’s not making marriage a litmus test for that kind of enormous financial support."

Bloomberg will intensify his same-sex marriage advocacy this month, with a big fundraiser for the cause and a major speech at Cooper Union. And speaking to the press in Lake Placid today, Governor Cuomo said, "I’m doing everything I can." But Cuomo has been heavily criticized for refusing to bring the issue to a vote unless the votes to pass it are secured. (In December 2009, a same-sex marriage bill was voted down by a surprisingly wide margin of 38-to-24, with no Senate Republicans voted in favor.)

"Any Governor that is capable of getting a budget—and a conservative budget at that—passed on time has the power to secure passage of the Marriage Equality bill,” Allen Roskoff of Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, tells the Daily News. “If he can’t get it done, then we’ll know that he has been paying nothing but lip service to our rights—just like Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who practically owns the Republicans in the Senate after the millions he has given them but has yet to produce a single vote for the bill."

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By John Del Signore in News on May 18, 2011 3:51 PM

Comments [rss]

Unkle_Bob

That last I checked, we live in a democracy, not a dictatorship. Which, you know, means that sometimes you just don't get what you want, no matter how much you hollar.

felixthecat

It's true bloomberg bought the republican senate. He had them pass his charter school bill and other bills yet not one vote for marriage equality. Bloomberg and Quinn just raising Monet on this issue but they aren't doing anything to pass this bill.

youngpro

raising the Monet? like Water Lillies? or other watercolor paintings?

Bruce Goldensteinberg

Really, these gay activists should quit while they are ahead. They have successfully jammed homosexual marriage down the collective throats of the American people even though we still oppose it. When teh gays were told, "Enough!!!" by the decent men and women of California with Prop. 8, they did what those who despise democracy always do - overturn the will of the people, via the courts and by street thuggery. Any group which loathes the will of the people is not to be trusted. They say that gay marriage is their goal - but that's just the beginning. How long before they are bored with marrying within their gender and want to marry the dog or a wallaby? Some people just don't like marriage, and see it as a relic of a bygone age. They don't care what replaces it, as long as it is destroyed with other vestiges of bourgeois society.

TimeDown

I really hope you're just bored teenager looking to stir up trouble rather than an adult who actually believes what you wrote.

eflash

we finally have these mainstream politicians speaking out for gay rights, going further than anyone in their positions would have dared go in the past, and all we can do is criticize them?

Lord_Haw_Haw

"Cuomo has been heavily criticized for refusing to bring the issue to a vote unless the votes to pass it are secured."

Yeah, because bringing something to the floor and having it voted down would be much more effective.

"“If he can’t get it done, then we’ll know that he has been paying nothing but lip service to our rights."

Attacking the one person who might actually be able to get this thing passed. Another brilliant strategy.

People wonder why we can't get progressive legislation passed in this state. It's because the interest groups on the left are led by childish twats like this.

BottomlessChips

If he can’t get it done, then we’ll know that he has been paying nothing but lip service to our rights

You actually don't have a right to be married.