marriage equality in NY State

[rm]

As I've mentioned before, even earlier today, marriage equality stuff in NY State is weird.

Due to unrelated political drama in the state capital, the issue has largely been side-lined, along with the rest of the legislative agenda for a while now. And, since NY State recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, there's been a certain lack of urgency on the subject.

Our assembly as passed a bill for marriage equality three times. But our state senate is notoriously conservative and this has largely been a fight no one wanted to have or thought we could win.

Well, the fight is happening right now. And no one knows what the outcome will be (very weird for a state body that hashes everything out in private before anything happens in public, often leaving public debates meaningless on done deals).

But it seems the discourse on the bill is remarkable in and of itself.

ETA: voting is happening now, after a long, rambling and pretty weird speech from Senator Duane, a gay man who has been at the front of this fight for a while.

ETA2: watching the vote now. It looks like we're going to lose.

ETA3: "The bill is lost."

ETA4: and now there will be nattering about "momentum" from the bigots; cowards one and all.

Comments

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I'm not cionvinced that it's people. I think it's politicians who are voting for their personal political future and not the will of the people.

Maybe I'm wrong, but ...

[rm.livejournal.com]

A lot of them cited this. The track record of anyone losing a NY state-level election on a single issue (and by issue, I mean a political stance and not a scandal): it's never happened. They're liars.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Confused.

Are you saying that the politicians are claiming to be voting as they are to save their own skins, but that's not the case?

[rm.livejournal.com]

That's correct. Disagreeing with their constituents on this issue is very unlikely to make them loose their seats because of the way the state is gerrymandered. Some of these people have been in office for two decades now.

They are either misinformed, or shielding themselves from the more aggressive criticism they would receive if they just admitted they think gay people are immoral/sinners/inhuman.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Then I wonder what the will of the people happens to be.

Is there a way for the constituents to show that their will is not being reporesented, and have change brought down?

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

Not really. If anything, it's a big surprise that there was an actual vote today, because a lot of Senators wanted to not have to take a stand.

I hate to be pessimistic, but the fact is that the New York State Legislature couldn't pass a joint resolution to evacuate the state house if it were on fire, and I don't think that anything short of rewriting the state Constitution from scratch would fix that. If we're lucky, then someday the state courts will get fed up with the legislative morass and declare that establishing justice IS damned well within their bounds unlike the last time when they foolishly thought that tossing the ball to the Legislature would generate a remedy that everyone could believe in.

[maryling.livejournal.com]

the fact is that the New York State Legislature couldn't pass a joint resolution to evacuate the state house if it were on fire

Oh dear God, yes. This. After the leadership debacle from this summer, I've lost ALL faith in the state senate (other than my own senator, who's remarkably sane).

[dulcinbradbury.livejournal.com]

Your line break on that quote landed "the fact is that the New York State Legislature couldn't pass a joint"

... and I thought "Yah, they'd probably even fight like hell while stoned."