IS NEW YORK ON THE VERGE OF GAY MARRIAGE OR CHAOS?

As some of you may know, over the last couple of months the New York Legislature has been going through a very public and very tumultuous power struggle over who controls the senate. And Governor Paterson's gay marriage bill has been embroiled right in the middle of the drama.

Well, The Advocate reported this past Monday that a political coup, of sorts, was successfully executed. The democrats had only a two vote majority so when two democrats, Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate, announced that they agreed to vote with senate Republicans after reaching a power sharing agreement that made Republican Dean Skelos majority leader of the senate and Espada temporary president of the senate.

This, in effect, unseated Democrat Malcolm Smith who had been dragging his feet in bringing the marriage bill to the senate floor for a vote claiming there weren't enough votes to pass it even though the bill's sponsors claimed otherwise. Speculation was that in order for Smith to become majority leader last April, he made a deal with a couple of senate democrats who strongly opposed his support of gay marriage and didn't want the bill to go forward.

Wait. It gets better. Ironically, many now feel that the bill has a much better chance of being voted on and very possibly passed because of this coup.

Espada has publicly stated his support for granting same-sex couples the right to marry and although Dean Skelos has expressed opposition to the bill, he has also previously stated that he would allow his party colleagues to vote their conscience.

Unfortunately, today the Buffalo News reported the following:

With protesters from Democratic-leaning groups trying to block lawmakers from entering the chamber, the session fell apart immediately when the official bills that the Senate was about to move to the floor were locked in a desk by Democratic officials seeking to prevent the Republican-backed coup group from voting. Republicans did not have keys to the desk.

Sen. Hiram Monserrate, a Queens Democrat who is considered the weakest link in the uprising, walked out of the session — which left not enough members to have a quorum to take up any business. He said he needed more Democrats to join the takeover effort to make it a true coalition Senate.

"This chamber must not remain divided, so I'm going to excuse myself from this chamber," he said.

The on-again, off-again supporter of the coup said he will not return until the coalition expands. That leaves the Senate in a complete standstill with neither side able to produce the 32 votes needed to call session.

The state assembly overwhelmingly approved the bill last month and, of course, Governor Paterson is eager to sign it.

Now, if someone could only get the senate to act like adults instead of spoiled little children arguing over who's football it is, we just might be able to see a gay marriage bill passed in New York State. Maybe.

UPDATE...
According to a NY Times article, the situation in the senate has gotten even more chaotic.

Shortly after the republicans found a set of keys and were able to get into the senate chamber, one of the two defecting democrats (Hiram Monserrate of Queens) the republicans were counting on to complete the forum needed to conduct business, walked out saying he wanted to work on getting more democrats to join the coup before he would participate any further.

Pedro Espada Jr. (who is now sharing power) was so desperate to get his democratic colleagues back into the chamber, he's using the same-sex marriage legislation as a lure by promising to bring it to the floor for a full vote next week which would be the first time in the Senate's history.

Apparently our marriage equality cause has become a linchpin in the Senate's keystone cops like power struggle. Now if they can only get enough senators back into the chamber, we might have a real chance of not only finally getting a senate vote on this but actually even getting it passed.

Stay tuned.

Opposition To Gay Marriage Facing Uphill Battle

It seems as though those who want to derail Governor Paterson's directive recognizing gay marriages from outside the state of NY will face formidable legal obstacles.

It's nice to see a politician who has the backbone to stand up to unreasoned prejudices. Good for him! Read the post immediately following this one.

Full Story At: New York Times

NY Governor Issues Directive To Recognize Gay Marriages From Other States

ALBANY — As New York lawmakers pondered a new directive from Gov. David A. Paterson that state agencies begin revising their policies to honor same-sex marriages conducted outside New York. The Legislature’s top Republican said he had yet to decide whether to challenge the governor.
Joseph L. Bruno, the majority leader of the State Senate, said Thursday morning that he was surprised by the governor’s order but had not yet read it.
“I’m not going to second-guess it because I haven’t seen it,” Mr. Bruno said. “I don’t know the ramifications of this.”
On May 14, Mr. Paterson’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, wrote a memo to all state agency heads that directed them to evaluate their policies and begin rewriting them so they comply with a state appeals court decision that said New York must recognize gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions like Canada and California.
At a news conference on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Paterson repeated the directive and said that although he supports gay marriage and will continue to push for it in the future, this was not an “end run around the Legislature” but merely his interpretation of current laws on the books.
“I’m following the law as it always has existed,” he said.
Asked to respond to critics of the directive, he said, “I would suggest that if they went back and read the law, that they would come to a different interpretation themselves, even if they disagree with the concept of marriage equality.
“If I didn’t take this action,” he added, “I would leave this state open to law suits. I would leave the state treasury open to monetary damages.”
Mr. Bruno said Thursday that he and his staff would look at whether the governor had violated the checks and balances that stand between the executive and the legislative branches. But he stopped short of saying that Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, had overstepped his authority.
“There’s a constitutional question here,” Mr. Bruno added.
Relations between Mr. Bruno and Mr. Paterson have been especially cordial since the governor took over from former Gov. Eliot Spitzer in March. In a striking departure from the atmosphere in Albany when Mr. Spitzer was governor, Mr. Bruno and Mr. Paterson seem to have an unspoken truce.
The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses.
In a videotaped message given to gay community leaders at a dinner on May 17, Mr. Paterson described the move as “a strong step toward marriage equality.” And people on both sides of the issue said it moved the state closer to fully legalizing same-sex unions in this state.
“Very shortly, there will be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and probably thousands and thousands and thousands of gay people who have their marriages recognized by the state,” said Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, a Democrat who represents the Upper West Side and has pushed for legalization of gay unions.
Massachusetts and California are the only states that have legalized gay marriage, while others, including New Jersey and Vermont, allow civil unions. Forty-one states have laws limiting marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Legal experts said Mr. Paterson’s decision would make New York the only state that did not itself allow gay marriage but fully recognized same-sex unions entered into elsewhere.
The directive is the strongest signal yet that Mr. Paterson, who developed strong ties to the gay community as a legislator, plans to push aggressively to legalize same-sex unions as governor. His predecessor, Mr. Spitzer, introduced a bill last year that would have legalized gay marriage, but even as he submitted it, doubted that it would pass. The Democratic-dominated Assembly passed the measure, but the Republican-led Senate has refused to call a vote on it.
Short of an act by the Legislature, the directive ordered by Mr. Paterson is the one of the strongest statements a state can make in favor of gay unions.
“Basically we’ve done everything we can do on marriage legislatively at this point,” said Sean Patrick Maloney, a senior adviser to Mr. Paterson. “But there are tools in our tool kit on the executive side, and this is one.”