Gay Marriage Coming To New York
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Law, SexualityThat’s right. Not civil unions. Marriage.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer will introduce a bill in the coming weeks to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, his spokeswoman said Friday, a move that would propel New York to the forefront of one of the most contentious issues in politics.Though he has long voiced support for same-sex marriage and promised during his campaign last year to introduce legislation to legalize it, Mr. Spitzer did not mention the issue in his State of the State speech in January or in remarks a week ago outlining his priorities for the remainder of the legislative session, which ends June 21.
But does it have a shot?
Even among lawmakers who say they favor the legislation, there is some division over the best strategy to get it passed. Two legislators from Manhattan, State Senator Thomas K. Duane and Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried, both Democrats, have tried for several years to shepherd a gay-marriage bill through the Legislature and are trying again this year. That bill has at least 14 sponsors in the Senate and 42 in the Assembly.If Mr. Spitzer does propose a bill, it is unclear how much muscle he will be willing � or able � to put behind it. The priorities he has outlined � such as overhauling the state’s campaign finance laws and introducing a constitutional amendment to require nonpartisan legislative redistricting � already pose a considerable challenge. That would leave Mr. Spitzer with little political bandwidth that would allow him to build support for another controversial bill.
Given these political realities, the question that comes to my mind: is Spitzer putting this out there to fail?
Also, I’m sure the Democratic candidates for President are just tickled pink about Spitzer introducing this. Especially Hillary.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 and is filed under Law, Sexuality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:52 am
As a resident of New York, I have to say, I’m not particularly pleased with the idea. I’ve long been of the opinion that homosexuals should be afforded the same legal protections as married heterosexuals — the current state of affairs simply is not fair — but I have a hard time with the idea of calling it marriage. The fact that this will put Hillary between a rock and hard place by hopefully forcing her to you know, actually have an opinion, is really the only upside. I’d much rather see civil unions in New York State.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:22 pm
I really hate all the importance people put on the word “marriage” when associating it with “gay.” Civil unions are a step in the right direction, but they are extremely misleading in several respects. Many people think, “oh, we have civil unions now, so the gays have everything they need,” but fail to realize that civil unions ONLY include such rights that the legislators decide to explicitly write into them, and it is completely new ground from a legal standpoint when settling disputes.
Marriage, on the other hand, includes by default not only *ALL* of the rights of straight marriage (not just the ones *they* think we should be allowed to have), but also has a huge body of law and precedent backing up how and when the various provisions apply, especially when considering such things as adoption, child custody and support, inheritance, etc., in short, the very areas that make marriage so important for straight people.
Calling it marriage on a state level also makes it more likely that a successful challenge of the federal DOMA might occur, which (if Bush hadn’t stacked the federal courts with conservatives) would never withstand a constitutionality check. Until that occurs, tax law, immigration, inheritance, and a host of other federal marriage benefits and requirements will never be permitted for gay people. In particular, it makes it far easier for one state to refuse to enforce child custody or support court decisions made in states with gay civil unions or marriage, so all one has to do to evade one’s responsibility is move to a gay unfriendly state.
Though I think Governor Spitzer is doing a great thing by introducing this legislature, I am still somewhat gun-shy about the whole gay marriage issue, mostly because of how the neocons managed to convert what was then really a non-issue into an election winning issue in many states in 2000 through 2004. Unfortunately bigotry and homophobia are still quite common, and even people who say or believe they are not either will still vote against gay marriage because no one will ever find out they voted that way. Sure, marriage is a wonderful thing between a man and a woman, but people need to realize it can be just as beautiful between any two people who truly love each other and want to spend their lives together.
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:27 pm
As an ignorant unmarried straight male, can someone please educate me on what rights and privleges are issued to two people who get married? I am serious, I have no idea what exactly you get from the government.
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I have no insight into this, as I am as well an unmarried straight male, but from what I’ve gathered, it’s more about the symbolism than anything else.
It’s quite simple: if you don’t think homosexuals should be allowed to get married and have the same rights as heterosexuals, you think they are LESS than, and therefore don’t equate them to humans, which is fucked.
America is supposed to be “the land of the free”, except when it comes to gay marriage and other things like immigration.. do you have to be reminded that at one point our ancestors were immigrants? Who are we to put up borders to land that was here before us.
Smarten up people.
April 24th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Well, after a quick google, I came up with these list of rights and privileges afforded married couples but not gay couples:
http://www.pflag.org/Rights__Priviledges_and_Benefits_of_Marriage.175.0.html
and another:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bene.htm
and another:
http://www.marriageequality.org/facts.php?page=1049_federal
Of course none of these lists is comprehensive, since state rights vary from state to state (and I think most of the above was federal rights), and I’m sure there are a number of special cases that are probably not included here.
In addition, as I said before, many federal and state judicial precedents and rulings apply to married couples but not automatically to civil unions and not at all to the 99% of gay couples unfortunately enough to not even be allowed civil unions.
April 24th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
What if instead of civil unions or marriage, we simply grant a $.10 per dollar Gay tax credit? It could be a kind of revolving reparations deal. We could also eliminate the sales tax on all “gay” consumer goods and issue block grants for “gay zones.” We should subsidize “gay” companies (to be determined by a verified listed of the number of gay stockholders) in the form of loan guarantees, research & development grants/loans and tax incentives.
I not only believe we should make life as easy as possible for gays, we should encourage gayness. Oh, you say, that can’t be done — I say bullshit, with the proper economic incentive — I’ll do ANYTHING. I have talked to Mrs. DosPeros about this and she doesn’t seem to have a problem with it — so forget about marriage and all that, let the GAY PARTY BEGIN!!! (I’ll buy some stock in a petroleum jelly manufacturer and short my Fanz Enterprise (NASCAR) holdings.)
April 25th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Your sardonic post underscores how much mistrust exists regarding gays, “gay rights”, “the gay agenda”, etc. I sometimes feel bad for closed-minded folks. They must feel like they are losing the world they have always known and loved. The “gays” are taking over, and have “special rights” that they’ve never had before. Marriage? My god, that was unthinkable only a few years ago, and here we are having a national conversation about it. What is the world coming to? Cats and dogs screwing in the streets, gays recruiting your kids. The world is going to hell! It’s extremely scary, isn’t it DosPeros? And it’s a complete myth propogated by hystericals. These poeple are the “sky is falling” kind who tried to prevent women from voting, the races from co-mingling, and science from telling the truth. History has proven time and again that progress, freedom, true equality and understanding benefit everyone, everytime, always.
I respect the feelings of someone like Bob Aman (at the top of this chain) who are uncomfortable with sharing the term “marriage” with the gay community. It brings them just a little too close, doesn’t it? It’s better if they stay in the West Villiage, right? The civil rights movement was also uncomfortable, Galileo’s fight with the pope couldn’t have felt good, either. It is America’s destiny to provide equal rights and freedom to live and love for all people. Progress is inevitable. It may not be comfortable right now, but history has taught us that the results are always FABULOUS!
April 25th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Thanks sleipner. Now I’m not so clueless. However, as I read this it seems that it deals mostly with money. It’s kinda crazy how the almighty failing dollar can cause so much craziness. I honestly have no problem with gay marriage. If homosexuals want to be married I say let tham. But when it does pass, are we going to have the same debates over “gay divorce”?
I agree with the other mike, progress is inevitable, but you will always have some extremist group (like our two major political parties) who will try and force more moral laws down our throats. This debate can almost go hand-in-hand with legalization of marijuana, pro choice/life, or the death penalty.
April 26th, 2007 at 12:40 am
I seriously wish we could get past the “two guys marrying = icky” stage and realize that we aren’t asking for this out of some attempt to recruit your children, or (as many moronic conservative bigots assert) to start us down the slippery slope to legalizing marrying a goat.
Money is certainly one issue, but children, medical, immigration, and many other extremely personal issues are also highly impacted by the inability to marry.
My ex husband is from outside the US, and when we first met we had to jump through tons of hoops for him to finally be able to stay here, including long months of separations, and his being stuck in a job he hated for years, unable to change employers or jobs without starting the process all over again (and probably not even being allowed to – there’s a fairly limited set of occupations that even allow you to get a work visa, and lots of restrictions about who can apply and for how long, not to mention a huge waiting list). He’s paid probably around twenty thousand dollars in legal and INS fees for the whole process.
If we were allowed to marry, he would have simply filed some paperwork at the INS and within a few months, worked wherever he wanted, in whichever occupation he desired. A few years later we would have had to go in for an interview, and he’d get his green card. Total cost would probably have been under a thousand.
Stress related to the whole process was also a big factor in our breakup, it is entirely likely we would still be together if we could have done the marriage INS route. As it was, we were together (and monogamous) for over 7 years, which is better than many straight couples, and have remained best friends ever since.