NY Senate not to pursue same-sex marriage bill
Filed by: Alex Blaze
December 5, 2008 10:00 AM
http://www.bilerico.com/2008/12/ny_senate_not_to_pursue_same-sex_marriag.php (http://www.bilerico.com/2008/12/ny_senate_not_to_pursue_same-sex_marriag.php)
The NY general assembly has already passed same-sex marriage and governor Patterson has indicated that he would sign the bill, but it died in the Senate last year due to Republican opposition. The focus was on turning two of those state senate seats blue to get a Democratic majority in both houses for this session, and they pulled it off. But that isn't enough to get the bill through the senate, the NY Daily News reported late yesterday:
A bill to legalize same-sex marriage will not be brought to the floor of the Senate for a vote this year. Smith will announce that he does not believe the measure has sufficient votes to pass - a statement that is at this point undoubtedly true, although it's unclear how long that will last if, as Democrats are hoping, the prospect of being in the minority leads to mass GOP retirements.
The reasons floating around was that they didn't want to hurt the governor's reelection chances in 2010, that it was too controversial, etc. It's standard-issue Democratic talk, but it always amazes me that Republicans are always assumed to take one side on this issue, no matter how unpopular, and they never break ranks on these sorts of bills. Democrats, on the other hand, are always worried about looking to extreme or rocking the boat. They simply don't have the discipline that the Republicans do, meaning that simple majorities don't help queers. We need big 70 to 80% majorities to get anything passed, what with allies like these.