BREAKING NEWS--Assembly Judiciary Committee Approves Marriage Bill

By: PAUL SCHINDLER Gay City News

Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell appears to be on the verge of steering Governor Eliot Spitzer's marriage equality bill to passage in his chamber.

In a straight party-line vote, the Judiciary Committee of the New York State Assembly this afternoon approved the marriage equality bill introduced by Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer in April and sponsored by Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell and Senator Tom Duane.

The favorable vote out of Judiciary is a strong predictor that the full Assembly will approve the measure later this week.

The 16-5 vote came at the conclusion of roughly 10 minutes of deliberation during which O'Donnell, an openly gay Upper West Side Democrat and a Committee member, fielded questions from its ranking Republican, Jack Quinn of upstate Hamburg, near Buffalo.

Among the questions Quinn posed to O'Donnell were why civil unions were not an adequate substitute for marriage equality and what other state legislatures had passed such legislation.

The vote in the Assembly, coming as it does just three days before the Legislature recesses, is significant for several reasons.

The Democratic conference, which includes 108 of the chamber's 150 members, has been weighing whether to bring the bill to the floor for the past month. Speaker Sheldon Silver, the Democratic leader from the Lower East Side, was known to be unwilling to have a floor vote unless he were certain that his party had enough votes, at least 76, for passage, and the number of known Democratic supporters has been hovering right near that number for the past several weeks.

It is widely considered unlikely that the bill would have gone to the Committee unless the intention were to take it as well to the Assembly floor. The unanimous Democratic vote for the measure signals that the conference has come around to support its passage.

Specifically, four of the Democrats who supported the measure today - Helene Weinstein of Queens, the Committee chair; Peter Rivera of the Bronx; Michele Titus of Queens; and Kenneth Zebrowski, Jr., of Rockland County - were all to-date publicly neutral. The shift of four Democrats in a group of 16 confirms the party's coalescence around the measure.

Observers in Albany are predicting that the full Assembly may take up the bill as early as Tuesday. The only obstacle remaining prior to a vote on the floor is approval by the Rules Committee, chaired by Speaker Silver. That formality would likely come immediately prior to an Assembly vote.

Though passage of the marriage equality bill in the Assembly seems increasingly assured in this session, the prospects in the Senate are considerably more problematic.

The Republicans hold a two-seat advantage among 62, and Joe Bruno, the Rensselaer-area Senate majority leader, has said he will not move the bill in his chamber. But time may be working against Bruno; his majority has been trimmed in each of several recent elections, and he currently faces a federal probe of his outside business dealings.

The most recent Senate special election, held in February to fill a vacancy previously in Republican hands in Nassau County, saw the election of Democrat Craig Johnson, a vocal marriage equality supporter. Numerous Albany insiders have predicted that another Democratic special election win could force one or more nervous Republicans to bolt their party, relinquishing GOP control of the Senate.

Duane, the marriage bill's Senate sponsor, has lined up 18 of his Democratic colleagues as co-sponsors. The Empire State Pride Agenda, the state's LGBT lobby, puts the number of Senate marriage equality supporters at 20, with 29 opposed and 13 uncommitted.


©GayCityNews 2007

Mass. Judge Validates Over 170 New York Gay Marriages

By Anthony Cuesta
247gay.com

More than 170 New York same-sex couples who married in Massachusetts between 2004 and 2006 are legally wed, a high court judge ruled.

The Associated Press reports that Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Thomas Connolly ruled last week that since New York had not yet explicitly banned same-sex marriages before last July, those marriages are legally valid.

"Since 2004, it has been the position of the attorney general's office that New York law presumptively requires the recognition of marriages validly performed in other jurisdictions," said New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer in a media statement.

'The marriages are now legally valid in New York and they should expect to be treated as married couples,' said Carisa Cunningham, a spokeswoman for Gays and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) in Boston, to Reuters.

Couples are barred from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriages would be prohibited in their home states. The New York Court of Appeals ruled against same-sex marriages on July 6, 2006.

GLAD had asked for clarification of the status of New York couples who married in Massachusetts before that ruling. Massachusetts became the first state in the country to allow gay marriage in May 2004.

A spokesman for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo indicated that his office considers the marriages at issue valid.

N.Y. honors gay public employees' marriages

Planet Out

The state of New York is offering a special open enrollment period for state and local LGBT employees who were legally wed in Canada or anyplace else same-sex marriage is legal and want their partner to have benefits through the New York State Health Insurance Program.

The special enrollment period began May 1 and will conclude May 31, the Empire State Pride Agenda said in a written statement.

"This policy furthers Gov. Spitzer's recently announced intention to create civil marriage equality for all New Yorkers,"

said commissioner Nancy G. Groenwegen in a statement issued by the state Department of Civil Service.

"Health insurance benefits are an important part of the advantages and protections extended to married couples regardless of sex," Groenwegen said.

Based on an initiative that was announced alongside Gov. Eliot Spitzer's marriage bill, 800 local government entities across the state that participate in NYSHIP's Empire Plan are now required to offer spousal benefits to the partners of LGBT employees.

"We are glad New York is moving to provide state and local government employees who are married to same-sex spouses access to the same benefits all other married government workers receive," said Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda.

"Having access to employer-based benefits for a spouse is fundamental to being able to take care of one's family. This decision by the makes families stronger in New York."(The Advocate)

N.Y. Governor Says Gay Marriage Protects Families

by Kilian Melloy
EDGE Boston Contributor
Tuesday May 8, 2007

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who introduced legislation last month to extend full marriage equality to the state’s residents, has issued a memo to state lawmakers articulating the need to protect and acknowledge all families. Spitzer is the first governor in U.S. history to propose such a bill.

"Same-sex couples who wish to marry are not simply looking to obtain additional rights, they are seeking out substantial responsibilities as well: to undertake significant and binding obligations to one another, and to lives of ’shared intimacy and mutual financial and emotional support...

The New York Sun reported May 8 that Spitzer’s two-page memo, called a "statement in support," took on a central argument used by marriage equality opponents, who claim that allowing same-sex couples to marry would "erode" marriage as a civil and religious institution and endanger civilization as we know it.

"Same-sex couples who wish to marry are not simply looking to obtain additional rights, they are seeking out substantial responsibilities as well: to undertake significant and binding obligations to one another, and to lives of ’shared intimacy and mutual financial and emotional support," the memo reads, in part.