New York State The Last Great Gay Hope



by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
With the collapse of marriage equality in Rhode Island and Maryland, the last bastion of marriage equality this year is New York. This pits State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr against Governor Andrew Cuomo in many ways. Diaz has stated that marriage equality will happen in New York only over his dead body, and he should be glad that he doesn’t live in New Jersey where someone might actually take him up on that offer.
Cuomo may be able to pull it off. He managed the impossible already by getting the state a budget when his predecessor David Patterson was unable to get so much as an agreement on how to spend three cents. Cuomo has also managed to do the impossible by bringing together groups within and without the LGBT Community into a coalition aimed to bring about this change. (Yes, I know that I am using a very archaic meaning of the word ‘without’, in this case meaning outside of just like within means inside of).
He has brought together the Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Marry New York, Empire State Pride Agenda and Marriage Equality New York to form the initial coalition. He has since brought in Log Cabin Republicans of New York and the League of Women Voters of New York State.
A majority of New Yorkers support marriage equality with 58% in favor. This has caused some Senators to start thinking about switching their votes when this comes before the legislature. The fact that a majority of New Yorkers, and Rhode Islanders even, support marriage equality does not mean that the votes will be there as external pressures, usually from religious groups who rely upon stereotypes and bullying, pressure legislators into not voting for equality and justice for people.
The issues of marriage equality and those surrounding the LGBT Community effect not only those within the community, but those without. In fact, those without the Community may find that the degradation of one group makes it far easier to degrade another group no matter what the history of that group is with regards to civil rights. Simply put, one typically sees racist thinking advanced by those who are also homophobic, and giving these individuals a target that they are allowed to discriminate against in the LGBT Community allows them the freedom to start attacking the other minorities with the same impunity.
Many of the same people who are attacking unions, women, Blacks, and Hispanics are also attacking lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transpeople. Those who once openly attacked the LGBT Community are now going further and further with their attacks on the LGBT Community.
This is seen in the likes of Tea Party activists who will scream racist and homophobic epithets at members of Congress, and their backers who deny that such incidents ever occurred. It is seen in the politicians who in one breath will doubt President Obama’s qualifications to be President while also claiming that lesbians and gays make horrible parents.
Of course, there is Exhibit Number 1 on this- Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. He has attacked the LGBT Community, African Americans, Native Americans and everyone he can get his hands on.
Still, there is hope.
New York City council speaker Christine Quinn, who is openly lesbian, believes that the state is on the verge of victory on marriage equality. She recently talked to a state senator who had voted ‘no’ last time, and she said of that meeting “When I met with this senator last week, at the end of the meeting, the senator said to me, ‘I will make sure that your father gets to see you dance at your wedding.’”
There is hope. But hope is not enough. It is time to work for that better tomorrow.
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