NY Gov Mario Cuomo Puts Into Action Gay Marriage by Naming Erik Bottcher

Patrick McMullan/PatrickMcMullan.com/Sipa

Council Speaker Christine Quinn with Erik Bottcher, whom Gov. Cuomo named community affairs aide, hinting that he will try to legalize gay marriage.

Erik Bottner. Tall, handsome and smart. Erik has been a liaison to the gay community working with Christine Quinn, City Council Speaker. He has been working real hard and following up on issues from hate crimes to same sex marriage. It is with great pleasure that many of us in the gay community have learned that Gov. Mario Cuomo has tapped on this man's talents.

Below is a story I picked up on the NY Daily News this morning. With Erik's appointment the Governor is putting in action,  one of his promises to the gay community. That of gay marriage but also giving the gay community the importance and voice that other communities enjoy in the state government. 

I know Erik is the right choice. He is wished success!  I've met Erik in person, the above picture does him no justice.    adamfoxie*

                                                                                **

Cuomo is naming Erik Bottcher, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's liaison to the gay community, to the newly created cabinet post of special assistant for community affairs.Andrew Cuomo said during his campaign that he wants to make gay marriage legal in New York and a new appointment may signal he means business - even if it's still an uphill battle.

"Erik's intellect and experience will be an invaluable asset in the fight to restore New York as the progressive capital of the nation," Cuomo said of Bottcher, who served as his liaison to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in the 2010 race.

It's fair to ask whether Bottcher's appointment sends a message about how serious Cuomo is about gay marriage or whether it's just a nod to his liberal base.

Legalizing marriage could be a heavy lift: In 2009, the state Senate, then controlled by Democrats, defeated it by a clear 38-to-24 vote.

New GOP Majority Leader Dean Skelos has said he'll allow the measure to come to the Senate floor again this year, although he doesn't support it.

Cuomo gave a nod - of exactly one sentence - to gay marriage during his State of the State address.

And as he has brought his reform agenda around New York, same-sex nuptials have taken a backseat to job creation and dredging Albany's ethical quagmire.

As the Daily News first reported Friday, Cuomo is raising war funds to take on the unions as he pushes for a one-year pay freeze, a property tax cap and other measures distasteful to labor.

Business interests are also pushing his agenda through an ad campaign funded by the Committee to Save New York.

Gay marriage is already legal in Iowa and New Hampshire - the two bellwether states in presidential campaigns - as well as Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Washington, D.C.

Plenty of people - gay and straight - have been asking for years what is taking New York so long.

The historically liberal Cuomo has to walk a tightrope on gay marriage: If he pushes it ahead of economic issues in the current climate, he could develop an "Obama Problem" of the kind that forced the President's course correction from a focus on health care reform to "jobs, jobs, jobs."

On the other hand, the new governor risks angering his left-leaning base if he allows a civil rights issue like this one to languish indefinitely.

Ross Levi, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, argues there is "a clear and credible path" to legalizing same-sex marriage as soon as this year.

Levi points to polls showing New Yorkers increasingly supportive of legalization and a study by former city Controller Bill Thompson that says the lack of legal gay marriage costs New York money. The economic impact argument may influence some moderate or conservative lawmakers who are socially squeamish about gays marrying, he says.

What exact role Bottcher - whose statewide work won't be limited to LGBT issues - and Cuomo play in this battle remains to be seen.

But as Levi puts it, "The more the governor needs to act as a fiscal conservative, the more I think he will be having to live up to that plank in his State of the State to make New York a 'progressive' state again."

by CELESTE KATZ

http://www.nydailynews.com