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Gay Marriage Advocates Slam Bloomberg, Cuomo For Not Doing Enough
By
John Del Signore
Published May 18, 2011
Modified May 18, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published May 18, 2011
Modified May 18, 2011
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Mayor Bloomberg was in Albany yesterday with Christine Quinn to pressure State Senators to support a same-sex marriage bill. During meetings with seven Republican Senators, Bloomberg vowed to campaign for any candidate who came out for gay marriage, regardless of how they voted on any other issue. And he made the case that same-sex marriage is “entirely consistent with the G.O.P.’s core values of promoting limited government and individual liberty."
At a press conference, Bloomberg also said, "I just have never thought that it’s the government’s business to get involved in telling people who they should be married to. The longer the Senate obstructs marriage equality, the heavier the price they will pay not only in the history books, but at the polls." The mayor vowed to put at least $100,000 of his own money to the effort. “Marriage equality is going to happen eventually,” Bloomberg said. “It is just not a matter of if. It is purely at this point a matter of when….The longer the Senate obstructs marriage equality the heavier the price they will pay, not only in the history books, but at the polls."
Times columnist Clyde Haberman notes that the promise to campaign on candidates' behalf may not be much of a sweetener; Bloomberg endorsed six Republican candidates for the State Senate last election, and four of them lost. And he's not threatening to cut off campaign donations to those who don't vote his way on gay marriage. "The real world is, you cannot pick one issue and say it’s all or nothing," the mayor said. That strategy disappointed gay Manhattan Democratic Senator Thomas Duane, who told NY1, "I think it’s sad that he’s not making marriage a litmus test for that kind of enormous financial support."
Bloomberg will intensify his same-sex marriage advocacy this month, with a big fundraiser for the cause and a major speech at Cooper Union. And speaking to the press in Lake Placid today, Governor Cuomo said, "I’m doing everything I can." But Cuomo has been heavily criticized for refusing to bring the issue to a vote unless the votes to pass it are secured. (In December 2009, a same-sex marriage bill was voted down by a surprisingly wide margin of 38-to-24, with no Senate Republicans voted in favor.)
"Any Governor that is capable of getting a budget—and a conservative budget at that—passed on time has the power to secure passage of the Marriage Equality bill,” Allen Roskoff of Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, tells the Daily News. “If he can’t get it done, then we’ll know that he has been paying nothing but lip service to our rights—just like Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who practically owns the Republicans in the Senate after the millions he has given them but has yet to produce a single vote for the bill."
Tagged
civil union
Cuomo
gay marriage
mayor bloomberg
same sex marriage
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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