New York Times - November 28, 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/nyregion/29marriage.html>
N.Y. Democrats May Skip Gay Marriage Vote By JEREMY W. PETERS
ALBANY — After a pledge from New York Democratic leaders that their party would legalize same-sex marriage if they won control of the State Senate this year, money from gay rights supporters poured in from across the country, helping cinch a Democratic victory.
But now, party leaders have sent strong signals that they may not take up the issue during the 2009 legislative session. Some of them suggest it may be wise to wait until 2011 before considering it, in hopes that Democrats can pick up more Senate seats and Gov. David A. Paterson, a strong backer of gay rights, would then be safely into a second term.
The question of how aggressively to proceed has touched off an intense debate among legislators and gay rights supporters about how ready the broader electorate is to embrace same-sex marriage, both in New York and across the country.
Many are still stung by California voters’ approval this month of a measure that reversed a court decision that gave gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. Heavy spending by church groups and others opposed to same-sex marriage helped the proposal win.
“We want to get there, but we want to get there the right way or else we risk setting ourselves back another decade,” said Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat who represents the Upper East Side. “I think the California proposition and the recognition that entities with large amounts of money who oppose same-sex marriage have decided to be large players in this have a lot of people going back to the drawing board.”
In addition, shoring up the state’s depleted treasury and repairing the economy have become the most pressing issues for Albany lawmakers, who return to the capital in January to face a reconfigured landscape. Democrats hold a majority of seats in both chambers of the Legislature, along with the governor’s office, for the first time since the 1930s.
Some Democrats are not even confident they have the 32 votes necessary to pass a same-sex marriage bill in the Senate.
The Democratic-led Assembly passed the measure last year by a sizable margin, but the Republican-controlled Senate declined to bring it to the floor for a vote.
And with a messy fight under way over who should be Senate majority leader — a fight threatening to fracture the thin Democratic Senate majority — even typically outspoken supporters of gay rights have become more measured about the issue.
Internally, the debate has created two camps among lawmakers who back the bill — with one group saying a vote should happen as early as possible in 2009, and another camp arguing for an indefinite delay. But delaying it could upset some advocates of same-sex marriage, who poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into State Senate races this year.
“Since when are fixing the economy and civil rights mutually exclusive?” said Daniel J. O’Donnell, an assemblyman from the Upper West Side who led the push for the bill in the Assembly.
Mr. O’Donnell added that expectations are high in the gay community that New York will be able to deliver the movement’s next victory. “The leadership of the Senate and others in our community collected a lot of money from a lot of people with the promise — spoken and unspoken — that if the Democrats won the Senate, they would take a vote,” he said.
Mr. O’Donnell plans to introduce a bill relatively early in the 2009 session, setting up a possible confrontation with the Senate.
Senator Thomas K. Duane, the Senate’s leading advocate on gay and lesbian issues, said the odds of a vote reaching the Senate floor in the 2009 legislative session are 50-50.
“I can’t even imagine before the budget’s done that we would do anything,” Mr. Duane said. The Legislature is required to pass its budget before the state’s fiscal year begins on April 1.
But even once the budget is passed, Mr. Duane said, other factors will have to be weighed, like whether the timing is too politically risky for the governor.
“We definitely want David Paterson to run for re-election and to win,” he said. “There’ll be a discussion. And we’ll have a point of view about time frame; he’ll have a point of view on time frame.”
People with knowledge of Governor Paterson’s position on gay marriage said the governor is wary of making a big push for the bill as the Senate leadership remains in flux.
Despite the fact that Democrats will hold 32 of the 62 Senate seats in the next legislative session, three dissident Democrats have not pledged their support for the would-be majority leader, Malcolm A. Smith. One of those senators, Rubén Díaz Sr., has specifically said he would not support a majority leader who would allow a same-sex marriage bill to come to the floor.
With that threat looming, Mr. Smith, Mr. Paterson and other supporters of the bill have been more measured in their comments in recent weeks.
Mr. Smith, speaking about same-sex marriage at a fund-raiser for the Empire State Pride Agenda last year, was emphatic, saying, “We’re going to make sure that happens in ’08, when we take over the majority.” He now avoids questions on the topic and instead gives a standard reply about the need to focus on the economy when asked about it.
Asked about when Mr. Paterson would like to see the Senate vote, the governor’s communications director, Risa B. Heller, said, “For now and the immediate future we are focused on the state’s fiscal situation.”
The Empire State Pride Agenda, an organization known for aggressively pursuing news media attention, said through a spokesman that it was in a “quiet period” and would not respond to questions.
Some Democrats are mulling whether the Senate should wait to hold a vote on the bill until after the 2010 elections. That would prevent Republicans from being able to use gay marriage as an issue against Mr. Paterson in socially conservative areas of the state or against Democratic Senate incumbents.
Those opposed to waiting pointed out that similar predictions of a backlash after the Assembly passed its gay marriage bill last year proved false. None of the Assembly members who voted for the bill and ran for re-election were defeated.
Some see an opportunity to move a bill in the Senate toward the end of the 2009 session if a handful of Republican senators suddenly retire — which many politicians in Albany believe to be a distinct possibility if Democrats secure their control of the majority.
Even those who think it is wiser to wait said they will wait only so long.
“No one is waiting for a very long time,” Mr. Duane said. “And I’m not that patient a person.”