Andrew Cuomo Helps Coordinate Push For Gay Marriage

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is taking a hands-on approach in the battle to pass a gay marriage bill.

The New York Times reports that Cuomo is committed to helping gay rights groups organize a campaign that, supporters hope, will succeed where others have failed.

From the New York Times:

Under the supervision of the governor's staff, the groups intend to raise more than $1 million for a media blitz, hire a powerful political consultant close to the Cuomo administration and deploy field organizers to the districts of more than a dozen key lawmakers to drum up support, according to interviews with those involved in the effort.

The Times contends that during 2009's unsuccessful effort, gay rights groups "sent conflicting messages, misjudged the opposition and won far fewer votes than they had predicted."

Cuomo wants to make sure that things run more smoothly this year.

In December of 2009, a same-sex marriage bill was defeated by a 24-38 vote in the state Senate. All Republicans and eight Democrats voted against the measure.

Brian Ellner of the Human Rights Campaign told HuffPost there's never been a better opportunity to make marriage equality a reality.

"Public opinion has changed in the last year and a half," said Ellner, who is the senior strategist
for HRC's Campaign for New York Marriage. "There are many members of the Senate in both parties who will be standing up for equality when there is a vote."

Ellner pointed to national and statewide polling that suggests that Americans and New Yorkers in particular have never been more strongly in favor of gay marriage.

He also noted the successful repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Obama administration's refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, as signs of national progress.

And then there's the immensely popular ally in Cuomo.

"The governor is enormously important to getting this done," Ellner said.

Comments

[Russell Lewis]

01:15 AM on 04/23/2011

I fear the forces of the Catholic Bishops conference of New York are probably already behind closed doors plotting his downfall or his excommunication or some other pronouncement about the danger to his eternal soul.
I know the God I worship certainly loves all my gay and straight brothers and sisters equally. I know He sure loved my decidedly non-heterosexual brothers in the seminary and we see what happened with THAT whole situation.

[RobWarwick]

08:25 PM on 04/21/2011

goodl. lets get this done. it's time for this silliness to come to an end. NY will be a huge stepping stone to finally getting past this issue and allow people who love one another to get married and share the same rights and responsibilities that hetero couples do

[Dragoon]

11:50 AM on 04/21/2011

Hopefully he will have an easier time than his predecessor. Two of the 8 Dems who voted against the measure are now either out of the Senate (Hiram Monseratte for a domestic violence arrest??) and or recently indicted on federal bribery charges (Carl Kruger) which also outed him and his gay lover's relationship. Hopefully Gov. Cuomo will have the political clout to persuade the 6 remaining Dems to vote in favor. Hopefully he can also sway a couple of Republicans. He delivers this and he becomes a 2016 frontrunner and solid replacement for Biden on the Obama 2012 ticket. Biden getting the Sec of State position abandoned by Hillary.

[zest]

09:04 AM on 04/21/2011

Come on, come through New York!

[Steven Barall]

10:57 PM on 04/20/2011

What's with the mug shot? Isn't this a visual medium?

[LynnW49]

07:50 PM on 04/20/2011

That is excllent news.

Now let's stop calling it "gay marriage." There is no such thing as "gay marriage." There is marriage. Sicilian-Americans get married and no one calls it Sicilian-American marriage (cool wedding scenes from The Godfather notwithstanding). Straight people get married and no one calls it straight marriage. There is only marriage, and it is past time it was accessible to all couples in America.

[LynnW49]

08:00 PM on 04/20/2011

Editors:

Andrew Cuomo Helps Coordinate Push For Gay Marriage -- say what?

Andrew Cuomo Helps Coordinate Push For Marriage Equality -- accurate

[nopaytaxes]

08:22 PM on 04/20/2011

suggest you look up the meaning of the word Marriage

[DrReve]

04:41 PM on 04/22/2011

Exactly what I was thinking! Marriage equality!

[xenas mom]

08:03 PM on 04/20/2011

Yes, good points! Thanks for the reminder.

[fstarr56]

06:12 PM on 04/20/2011

Marriage should be kept between one man and one woman. Ask any middle school kid what kind of family they want, and they will tell you a mom and dad that love each other and love them. Marriage is about what is best for kids, not what makes Rosie or Ellen happy.

[Ioan Lightoller]

06:39 PM on 04/20/2011

The meaning of marriage has changed many times over the centuries. We have families, too. What about them? Oh, they don't count, right? Studies have found that same-sex parents do as good a job of raising well-adjusted children. If anything, lesbian parents seem to do the best job. But none of that matters, right?

Luckily, the majority of Americans do not feel the same way. Time to come out of the 19th Century and into the 21st Century.

[aviandonn]

06:56 PM on 04/20/2011

Exactly, and allowing gay couples to marry is best for their kids. So what's you real problem?

[nopaytaxes]

04:31 PM on 04/20/2011

They have said for years that that is the way he swings

[Nick Tarlton]

02:35 AM on 04/21/2011

for equality...yeah...i'm glad..

[DrReve]

04:54 PM on 04/22/2011

Great response! He's a very upstanding guy; doing the right thing even if it might hurt him politically.

[hemorrhage]

03:49 PM on 04/20/2011

Hopefully, by the time this comes up for a vote, my recently-outted, hypocrite Senator Carl Kruger will be rotting in prison and not have the opportunity to vote against it.

[Joseph Mustich]

02:01 PM on 04/20/2011

It's time let move forward. Period.
Cheers, Joe Mustich, CT Justice of the Peace, USA

[mftinvermont]

01:58 PM on 04/20/2011

Thank you! Cuomo in 2016!

[RuhRoh]

12:46 PM on 04/20/2011

Thank you, Governor!

[unimatrix0]

12:33 PM on 04/20/2011

Besides the fact it is the right thing to do, I think NY currently recognizes same sex marriages from other states, they just don't perform them themselves. That seems like a huge loss of business when you make NY citizens move their wedding venues to another state, and rent a DJ, hall, hotels, limos, buy food, drinks, cake, etc. and have it all spent in another state; especially when NY will recognize the marriage when they return home. In this economy I would think the business community would welcome a wedding booking, no matter who's it is.

[rextrek]

12:51 PM on 04/20/2011

seriously...and ALL that Money being Taken OUT of NYC , and as you noted ..being Spent in Other states.......last year my partner of 11yrs and I got married in Vermont.....so we took our $2000 of Vacation money and spent it THERE,and NOT in NJ where we live...we wanted to be MARRIED,not Civil Unioned.

[Ioan Lightoller]

01:38 PM on 04/20/2011

Aneb to THAT, rextrek. My husband and I went and married in Canada. That was money that could have been spent in Michigan (we married in Winsor so my aged mom could attend).but nope, they had to be bigots and pass that amendment blocking marriage equality.

[mftinvermont]

01:59 PM on 04/20/2011

Thank you! My state appreciates it!

[Ioan Lightoller]

01:38 PM on 04/20/2011

Fanned and faved. Well-said.

[Ioan Lightoller]

11:46 AM on 04/20/2011

Wonderful! Bless you, Mr Cuomo. The only "reasons" not to enact marriage equality boil down to ingorance and bigotry. It is always wonderful to have straight allies.