Albany fiddles as rights burn
Editorial 0 comments below
It is all but impossible to separate politics from policy in Albany and partisan gamesmanship is both art and science within the state Legislature, the Senate especially. That's not to say town and county governments always put the public's interest first, but the worst of what goes on in Town Hall can't come close to matching the callous and calculated conduct so routine in the capital. This year's Senate leadership deadlock is an extreme example, but it's not the only stain on the tablecloth.
State lawmakers can't seem to summon the insight or political will to close an abysmal budget gap, but they found the time and the energy to take on, and make a mockery of, the somehow still-controversial idea that gay and lesbian couples deserve the same legal rights and protections that married people take for granted.
The Assembly previously approved a gay marriage bill with ease. All that stood before the passage of a law truly deserving of the term "historic" was action within the Senate. For many years, the Senate was as rock-solid Republican as the Assembly is Democratic, but that stability crumbled last year when the Democrats gained the majority. Under the new order in Albany, legalizing gay marriage might have seemed a slam-dunk, but it wasn't. The bill failed, by a surprisingly wide margin, and now New York can be mentioned in the same breath as Maine and other areas where gay marriage failed. (See reporter Julie Lane's column, page 9.)
It didn't have to be that way.
A pre-vote headcount failed to find a willing majority and yet the measure still made it to the floor. Not surprisingly, Republicans long opposed to gay marriage, including the 1st District's Kenneth LaValle, voted accordingly. The shocking turnabout is the measure failed in a Democratically controlled chamber for lack of Democratic votes.
Were the bill's supporters, including the governor, willing to throw the dice on the rights of so very many people to make a statement and make opponents stand up and be counted? If so, that strategy backfired in a big way. A bill that fails so spectacularly is unlikely to arise, phoenix-like, anytime soon. And so gays and lesbians will continue to carry second-class status.
It's difficult to imagine a noble intent standing behind political skulduggery, especially in Albany. We can only hope that with the defeat of the gay marriage bill, alternative legislation designed to provide full rights and legal protection, absent any reference to the dreaded "M" word, at least for now, will seem acceptable by comparison and finally become law. That won't be the end of it by any means, but what a day that will be.
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