Be Careful What You Ask For.......

( forgive the length of this, it's my time on the therapist couch, and only costs me a couple of cups of coffee....)

From the NYT : "ALBANY — The New York State Senate decisively rejected a bill on Wednesday that would have allowed gay couples to wed, providing a major victory for those who oppose same-sex marriage and underscoring the deep and passionate divisions surrounding the issue. The 38-to-24 vote startled proponents of the bill and signaled that political momentum, at least right now, had shifted against same-sex marriage, even in heavily Democratic New York."

How did The Queen put it, low those many years ago? " annus horribilious" ? Not so much a year, just a really sucky afternoon....

As I have written here on the k+b MANY times, if you are not aware of how unbelievably , outrageously, perfectly DIS-functional the New York State Legislature is then you are a lucky, lucky person. It is full of DEEPLY entrenched, mostly men, who through gerrymandering have very secure seats, and there for do not have to do anything at all, really. Not Kyle's usual wacky hyperbole here, they honestly did not do any work at all this year, at least in the Senate. Well, until yesterday.

Since they had done no real work in their normal session over the Summer and Fall this year, the Governor called for a Special Legislative Session to be held. New York, like most every other state, is in dire straights. More than most other states, because we are so much bigger and so ,SO much more complex. There was real work that needed to get done.

We have been working pretty closely with the Empire State Pride Agenda over the last couple of years. Sometimes just as two large warm bodied seat fillers, sometimes in real discussions on the where's and why's of the lgbt movement. So, every time a whisper of a rumor came down the Albany pike that " IT'S COMING" , THE vote is coming !! We would saddle up and ride out to where ever we were told would do the most good. Albany a few times, calling members of the House and Senate, e-mails galore. Just being all around good foot soldiers. But, the cute bald boys in Albany just cried wolf! one or three thousand too many times, and so the tales of it happening yesterday , were pretty much blown off.

Neil had gone out to run some errands when the weepiest man on the Upper West Side, every ones favorite gay Senator ,( the only gay Senator) Tom Duane takes to the floor. We have a state wide c-span like channel that covers the house and senate, and since we had heard from the Times and blogs and from the Pride Agenda people that indeed, today was the day, we were glued. BUT, didn't think it would happen that fast.

So, here, after , really a couple of years of work, everyone getting all their ducks in a row, the New York House RE-voting on Marriage Equality the day before, every hurdle was cleared for the zombie suits that haunt the Senate Chamber to come in and just get it over with. Pins and Needles... big ones.

Now, I said you were lucky if you are not really familiar with the odd goings on in the Rockefeller Utopian Dream that is Albany, and you are. BUT, IF you do not know who Senator Rubin Diaz, of the Bronx is, the first thing you need to do every morning' pre coffee and doughnuts, is praise who ever it is you praise. Rare to find a bigger boil on the butt of humanity. BIG, BIG Puerto Rican, Snake handling evangelical preacher crazy. This is the guy that all the other tin foil hat wearing, big crazies point and laugh at. AND he is a Democrat.. and hates the gays, big time. He gets up next, waxes on for 20 min or so on all sorts of " the gays are going to kill us all"...... It is on , baby, the vote is happening.

We have talked till blue in the face about this day. Met with Senators, done all we could do. Rallied,chanted, eaten box lunches, listened to 19 year old, blond dredlocked, committed Socialist on how we could be doing a much better job. All our hard work , all the hard work of so many thousands of people around New York State was in the hands of these 62 people.

Democratic Senator after Democratic Senator got up and went all M.L.K. and Peace, Love and Harmony , Cum Bah Yah on the floor of the gold tiled room. As jaded as I am by now- some of the speeches were heart breaking. You can watch many HERE, I am only going to post one. It is long, but will give you some flavor of the afternoon.

The Democrats controle all of New York politics, but only a one seat majority in the Senate ( really, don't even think how this came about, it will deeply bother you...). We knew Senator Crazy was a NO, so, if we held every other Democrat, and pick up a couple of GOPers, we are disco dancing in the streets. We have met with our GOP Senator,Joe Alesi, a few times, he has looked me in the eye and said he was not against marriage equality. He never told us how he would vote , if IF , it ever came to the floor, but he was pretty darn supportive , all glad hands and good to see you.. while looking at his watch.
There was no debate , like the NYT and other papers are saying. Not a single Republican spoke, the only opposition was Sen. Diaz. The time spent on the floor was not that long, when the President Pro Tem calls for the vote. Someone requested a slow roll call....tick, tick ... tick.

Did not take long at all, again, as soon as we heard Alesi say NO!, we knew it was over. He was a must get, and had been in the yes column on some charts. We went down hard. Not even close. 38-24. EIGHT Democrats voted no... wow. A couple who had been firm YES votes.

So much of New York State politics, just like Georgia, is Upstate v. Down State, or NYC verses everyone else. There are neighborhoods in NYC with more people that whole counties up where I live. ( Ga is Atlanta v. the rest of the state). This was not so much that, we lost EVERYWHERE .

Monday Morning Quarterbacking

Why? ummmm. wow, LOTS of reasons.

• As always, Maine, California blah, blah , blah, we are a TINY hands out minority begging for a crust of bread. People are busy, people have their own problems, people are sick to death of hearing about damn gay marriage.
• New York is coming up on a Gubernatorial Election and our current one , who is WAY pro gay is Way unpopular, but not for that reason. He was never supposed to be Governor, our last Governor, even MORE pro gay ,had that little taking- hookers- across- state -lines problem. People are jockeying around to see who will get to run against Governor Patterson. If a pet bill of his, Marriage Equality, does not pass, he is that much weakened.
• Gays are icky. The VAST majority of the NO votes were old white men. Three women out of the 38, two people of color, one of those was an overlap.
• The New York Twenty Third. This one freaked some of the ( oxymoron alert) moderate Republicans out.
• Our old Nemesis the Roman Catholic Church... spent hard and heavy this Yuletide season to defeat this " Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me. " Jesus and all.. 'tis the reason for the season...
• Gerrymandering, again. The GOP was in control of the State Senate for ever and made it so their seats are safe. President Obama carried New York with like 63% of the vote. We are a deep blue state. Three maps:

Hillary Clinton's Second Senate Race

VERY Pro Same Sex Marriage Eliot Spitzer's Governor's Race

Yesterdays State Senate vote, upstate

One of these things is not like the others.... ( one of these things just doesn't belong )

NYC and Long Island maps here.

NOW WHAT ?

Well, what real choice do we have?

We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start all over again.

We rallied last night. " Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Jim Alesi has got to go.." etc.

ECUSA in da house!
REALLY nice sized crowd for the time there was to pull it off, and in a cold rain. Got a little tv time.
Hear us roar...
Big rallies state wide, nice pics HERE.

I do not know what else to do, right now. The vote was pretty much devistating, but somehow not as bad as my reaction to Prop 8 was. This was NOT a Constitutional Amendment like in other states. We will be doing all of this again. AND! ( the MOST IMPORTANT part ):

NEW YORK HAS GAY MARRIAGE.

The State of New York recognizes ALL out of state or in my case, out of country marriages.. I am married in the eyes of New York State. So, yesterday is at best, a pyrrhic victory for the NOM hate mongers, and we ain't going anywhere.

Good Lord, if you made it all the way through this, THANK YOU. And for all of you, many many folks out there who have supported us for so long , many thank you's to you, we can not get there on our own. We are on the side of the Angels on this one. On the right side of history. " We may not get there tomorrow, but...................."