New York State Senate Passes Marriage Equality Bill!

Photo: James Keivom/News

It's official, and on Gay Pride Weekend, no less!

New York State's Senate has just passed the marriage equality bill 33-29, ratifying the earlier affirmative New York State Assembly vote, and now it awaits Governor Andrew Cuomo's promised signature, which will make New York the sixth (joining Iowa, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and the District of Columbia), and by far the largest state by population, and by gay population, to legalize same-sex marriage. New York, the site of the 1969 Stonewall Inn Riots, also becomes the first state to pass a same-sex marriage bill through a legislature with differing parties controlling the two houses.

Cuomo had championed the cause of marriage equality from his campaign forward, even presenting an earlier version of the bill to the legislature, and repeatedly urged legislators of both parties to sign it.  He also directed a top aide to coordinate the efforts of a number of state gay-rights organizations and helped to lead a TV and radio campaign on its behalf. The logjam remained in the Senate, which flipped from tenuous Democratic control in 2010. Although 29 of the 30 Senate Democrats (including all the African Americans and all but one Latino legislator) signaled support, only 2 Republicans were officially on board. Then tonight, after the Senate President Dean Skelos (R-Long Island) finally brought the bill up for a vote, two more Republicans, Stephen M. Saland (R-Poughkeepsie) and Mark Grisanti (R-Buffalo), who had run against same-sex marriage in his campaign last year, shifted from on the fence to yes, and that was it.  A religious institutions exceptions amendment, sought by Republicans, passed 36-26.  Once Governor Cuomo signs the legislation, same-sex couples will be able to marry in 30 days.

Now, 44 more states to go, including both New Jersey and Illinois, the two states in which I spend most of my waking life. Just as important, many more states also need civil protections for LGBTQ people. The struggles continue, but what a major historic victory tonight for New Yorkers and all Americans!

UPDATE: Governor Cuomo has signed the legislation, so same-sex marriage is now official legal in New York State!

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Here's another perspective, by Columbia University professor Katherine Franke, suggesting that we should not foreclose other partnership possibilities, even as she champions the necessity of equality under the law.

Court Strikes Down Prop 8 + Bloomberg Defends Cordoba House

What a great piece of news: this afternoon, Judge Vaughn Walker, of the United States District Court of Northern California, issued a careful, thoughful, and earthshaking ruling in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, striking down the heinous Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that two years ago withdrew equal marriage laws in the State of California.  Walker stated in his judgment that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional "under both the due process and equal protection clauses," and ordered "entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement."

The judgment was a tremendous victory for same-sex couples, who had briefly enjoyed equal marriage laws in California after the state Supreme Court ruled, in In re Marriage Cases 43 Cal.4th 757 [76 Cal.Rptr.3d 683, 183 P.3d 384], in May 2008, that California's constitution permitted them.  It was also a victory for the plaintiff's lawyers, Ted Olson, the former Solicitor General under George W. Bush, and David Boies, who had argued on opposing sides in the case representing one of the worst recent rulings by the US Supreme Court, 2000's Bush v. Gore.

California's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had previously twice vetoed the state legislature's passage of marriage equality bills, hailed today's ruling as an affirmation of "the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves."

You can read the ruling (in .pdf form) here, at GoodAsYou. 

Opponents of Judge Walker's ruling have already filed appeals, and the case will likely go to the US Supreme Court. According to the New York Times's John Schwartz, Walker's ruling will make it more difficult for the US Supreme Court to overturn on appeal, mainly because of "the careful logic and structure of Judge Vaughn R. Walker’s opinion." With the current conservative quintet, which shows little concern for precedent or legal logic, however, the outcome is unclear, but what is clear is that today's decision was a momentous one, and a huge step forward after several recent steps backward (Maine, New Jersey, New York, etc.) on the marriage equality front.

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So Cordoba House, an Islamic cultural center (and not a "mosque," though that would have been fine in my eyes as well) is slated to be built two blocks north of the World Trade Center Ground Zero site, as the New York City Landmarks Commission voted to allow the demolition of the prior building at 45-47 Park Place in lower Manhattan.  The 13-story cultural center, which will include a prayer room and a 9/11 memorial, will rise, once its developer raises $100 million, despite the spate of hateful, misinformed rhetoric by a number of major conservatives, like current post-children and disgraced Republican politicians Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich.

Let us never forget, as we to often do, what comes out of these right-wingers' mouths, how toxic and corrosive it is, and also how this bigotry that they're currently spewing against Muslims and Islam has readily and frequently been applied throughout American history to Black Americans, women, Latinos, Asians and Asian Americans, Jewish people, Roman Catholics, immigrants in general, gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people (cf. above), disabled people, the poor, and on and on. They always find and target scapegoats, with destructive effects, and unless we speak out, we ratify their hate.

As others across the web have pointed out, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of whom I'm hardly a fan, gave a marvelous, moving speech yesterday defending the Muslim cultural center and the history of immigration and the ideas of religious freedom and pluralism in the US. It was for me one of the high points of his public career, and something that far more of our political figures need to do. To the rest of the pols on the Left, center, and yes, those on the right--who believe in the Constitution and aren't gripped by xenophobia and cynicism--who've been silent, step up to the mic!

NJ Senate Marriage Equality Debate + Update

The New Jersey Senate marriage equality bill (The Freedom of Religion and Equality in Civil Marriage Act) debate is taking place right now. You can watch it live here. The legislature must vote it up and get it to departing governor Jon Corzine by next Tuesday, because it faces a certain veto by the new right-wing-Bush/Rove lackey- masquerading-as-a-moderate governor, Chris Christie.

Republican State Senator Gerald Cardinale just called marriage equality "violence against marriage." Seriously. Two people of the same sex marrying is "violence," but the actions of Larry Craig, David Vitter, Mark Sanford, John Ensign, Tiger Woods, Eliot Spitzer (I did support him), etc., are not? He also just described a woman in a polygamous marriage as a "gal," and is comparing polygamy to same-sex marriage. Another senator, the markedly effeminate Republican Sean Kean, began his defense of bigotry and his no vote by noting that gay people had "gentrified" poor neighborhoods in his district, which was to be commended. Mumble-mouthed Democrat John Girgenti of Hawthorne added that he thought a referendum was the way to go, and was voting no to defend "traditional values." That my tax dollars fund these bigots is beyond disgusting.

Thankfully Democratic Senator Nia Gill, one of the original potential replacements for Corzine's US Senate seat, delivered an impassioned, historically sound argument on the history of marriage in the US in order to appeal for marriage equality.

UPDATE: The forces of bigotry win out again, at least for now, as the NJ State Senate defeated the bill 20-14. (Roll call here.) 21 votes were required for passage. 1 GOPer, Bill Baroni, joined 19 Democrats, including my local state senator, Sandra Bolden Cunningham, in voting "Yes," while 6 Democrats joined 14 Republicans to vote against marriage equality. 3 Democrats, including the incoming Senate president, and 2 Republicans did not vote.

California Rules + RIP Reginald Lockett & Robert Rauschenberg

I'm traveling this weekend, so I'm only able to post intermittently, but I just wanted to note the California Supreme Court's recemt ruling, which validated the possibility of same-sex marriage in the Golden State. Or, to quote the Los Angeles Times,

The 4-3 ruling declared that the state Constitution protects a fundamental "right to marry" that extends equally to same-sex couples. It tossed a highly emotional issue into the election year while opening the way for tens of thousands of gay people to wed in California, starting as early as mid-June.

This is huge news. With a population larger than many countries and a history as a pacesetter (cf. Massachusetts as well), the California ruling, if ratified by the legislature and citizenry, may have a huge impact on the fortunes of same-sex marriage in this country. One thing I'd also note is that now that New York's highest state court has ruled that the Empire State can recognize same-sex marriages from other venues, New York could soon be full of same-sex couples as well, and Governor Paterson would probably sign same-sex marriage legislation, so....

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I just learned that poet Reginald Lockett has just passed away. For years I only knew him based on his poem "Die Black Pervert," from his early Black Arts Days, which left a bad taste in my mouth, but I later got to know his work more broadly through Cave Canem, and even met him personally two years ago at the Harlem Book Fair.

Reading his work and his messages to the listserv, and seeing what he was up to in with his art, I came to admire him a great deal.

I'm very sorry to hear that he's no longer with us. RIP, Reginald.


Reginald Lockett, at the Harlem Book Fair, Summer 2006

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Chris called to ask if I'd heard Robert Rauschenberg passed away. I saw the New York Times's obituary, as well as a few others, and realized that an era had passed. He was one of those icons of post-Abstract Expressionist, pre-Pop art, a signal figure of the 1950s and 1960s, and one of the great exemplars of negative capability, an experimentalist whose wide-ranging work sometimes pushed to the very limits of the banal while often achieving something novel and remarkable. And, in the deep sense of the term, post-modern.

From his monochromes to his combines to the iconic Bed to the rubbings to works such as Rebus, he was also an important leader in cementing the centrality of American art in global art world, as well as in the queering of visual, sculptural and performance art's possibilities in the post-war American art scene, along with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and his former partner, Jasper Johns. He kept at it until relatively recently, and passed away at his home in Captiva, Florida. RIP, Robert Rauschenberg.

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Part of downtown North Adams, Massachusetts, with Mass MOCA in the background