Spitzer Vows to Push
for Gay Marriage
By DANNY HAKIM,
NYTimes on the Web, October 7, 2006
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Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Eliot
Spitzer’s promise to push for legalization of gay marriage was more
than some in the audience expected. |
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By saying on Thursday night that he
will push to legalize gay marriage, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer put himself
at the vanguard of the effort to recognize such unions, staking out a position
that most prominent Democrats, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, have
shied away from.
Mr. Spitzer, who is running for governor and holds a commanding lead in the
polls, made his strongest declaration yet in support of gay marriage in his
remarks to the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state’s leading gay lobbying
group. He told the audience, “We will make it law in New York.”
If elected, Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, would be the most prominent state official
in the nation to call for the legalization of gay marriage, though Democratic
candidates for governor in California and Massachusetts have also expressed
support. Many prominent Democrats, including Senator Clinton, have
supported gays on other issues but not on this one, which has led to friction in
their relations with gay leaders. Among the few prominent politicians who
support it are Senators Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin and Edward M. Kennedy
of Massachusetts, both Democrats; and Lincoln Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican.
The nationwide effort to legalize gay marriage has sputtered since a
Massachusetts court legalized such unions in that state in 2004. In July
this year, the New York State Court of Appeals said the issue should be decided
by the State Legislature, giving the issue new immediacy in the state.
Mr. Spitzer’s position could be a perilous one for a politician considered
presidential material, and he has acknowledged that if elected governor, he
would first push other legislative priorities including cutting property taxes
and overhauling Medicaid. But last night he said he would not let outside
pressures influence his stance.
“We will not ask whether this proposition of legalizing same-sex marriage is
popular or unpopular; we will not ask if it’s hard or easy; we will simply ask
if it’s right or wrong,” he told a crowd of nearly 1,200 gathered at a Midtown
hotel ballroom. “I think we know in this room what the answer to that
question is.”
Even with a governor’s support, there is the not insubstantial matter of the
State Legislature. Gay marriage bills have not advanced beyond committees
in the Assembly, where Democrats have an overwhelming majority, and would face a
difficult path in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Mr. Spitzer’s Republican opponent, John Faso, does not support gay marriage.
Shortly after Mr. Spitzer’s speech, Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of
the Empire State Pride Agenda, said he did not expect action in the first year
of a potential Spitzer administration.
“New York has a lot of problems,” he said. “When Eliot Spitzer takes
office on January 1, he’s going to have to fix Medicaid reform, there’s school
funding, there’s a dragging upstate economy, and he needs to tackle those
issues, but I’m confident that at the end of his first term as governor, we’ll
have marriage equality in New York State.”
Mr. Van Capelle has not been known for his patience. In a video played
shortly before Mr. Spitzer’s speech, Mr. Van Capelle criticized politicians who
call themselves friends of the gay community but don’t follow through with
reliable support, as pictures of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and United
States Senators Clinton and Charles Schumer flashed on the screen.
Thomas K. Duane, a gay state senator from Manhattan, called Mr. Spitzer’s speech
“beyond reassuring.”
“There was no tremendous imperative for him to come and be as forceful as he
was, which is a very good sign. He could have come and equivocated.”
He also expressed some optimism that the measure might succeed in the State
Senate, which is controlled by a slim Republican majority. Joseph L.
Bruno, the Republican Senate majority leader, has said he does not support gay
marriage, but his stance on gay issues has moderated over time, giving Mr. Duane
some hope.
Mr. Bruno rescinded domestic partner benefits for Senate staff members when he
first became majority leader in 1994 but later reversed himself on that and
other issues. In 2002, speaking in support of the Sexual Orientation
Nondiscrimination Act, he said, “Maybe I have become more enlightened,” adding
that he wanted to recognize that “people have the right to live their lives as
they see fit.”
But his staff reiterated yesterday that he opposes gay marriage.
The newly designated leader of the Senate Democrats, Malcolm Smith, made an
unexpected appearance at the Pride Agenda’s event on Thursday and assured Mr.
Duane that he was supportive of their cause. On Wednesday, he had been
noncommittal on the issue.
Mr. Silver has declined to take a position on gay marriage. Deborah Glick,
a Democrat from Manhattan who is the Assembly’s only openly lesbian lawmaker,
said that if Mr. Spitzer introduced a bill on his own, it would reshape the
dynamics of the debate in Albany.
“Clearly the dynamic is shifting,” she said, adding that while Mr. Spitzer’s
general support would be helpful, “it would be even more helpful if there was a
bill from the governor for the Legislature to consider. It puts the
governor’s full weight behind it.”
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