SAME SEX MARRIAGE VICTORY IN NEW YORK

SAME SEX MARRIAGE VICTORY IN NEW YORK

Sat Jun 25

ALBANY, New York (Reuters) – Governor Andrew Cuomo made same-sex marriages legal in New York on Friday, a key victory for gay rights ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

New York will become the sixth and most populous U.S. state to allow gay marriage. State senators voted 33-29 on Friday evening to approve marriage equality legislation and Cuomo, a Democrat who had introduced the measure, signed it into law.

“This vote today will send a message across the country.

This is the way to go, the time to do it is now, and it is achievable; it’s no longer a dream or an aspiration. I think you’re going to see a rapid evolution,” Cuomo, who is in his first year of office, told a news conference.

“We reached a new level of social justice,” he said.

Same-sex weddings can start taking place in New York in 30 days, though religious institutions and nonprofit groups with religious affiliations will not be compelled to officiate at such ceremonies. The legislation also gives gay couples the right to divorce.

“I have to define doing the right thing as treating all persons with equality and that equality includes within the definition of marriage,” Republican Senator Stephen Saland said before the bill was passed. He was one of four Republicans to vote for the legislation.

Cheers erupted in the Senate gallery in the state capital Albany and among a crowd of several hundred people who gathered outside New York City’s Stonewall Inn, where a police raid in 1969 sparked the modern gay rights movement.

“It’s about time. I want to get married. I want the same rights as anyone else,” Caroline Jaeger, 36, a student, who was outside the Stonewall Inn.

But New York’s Catholic bishops said they were “deeply disappointed and troubled” by the passage of the bill.

“We always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love. But we just as strongly affirm that marriage is the joining of one man and one woman,” the state’s Catholic Conference said in a statement.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an advocate for gay marriage who lobbied state lawmakers in recent weeks, said the vote was an “historic triumph for equality and freedom.”

“Together, we have taken the next big step on our national journey toward a more perfect union,” he said in a statement.

ELECTION ISSUE

President Barack Obama, who attended a fund-raiser in New York on Thursday for Gay Pride Week, has a nuanced stance on gay issues. Experts say he could risk alienating large portions of the electorate if he came out strongly in favor of such matters as gay marriage before the 2012 elections.

During the 2008 election, Obama picked up important support from Evangelicals, Catholics, Latinos and African-Americans, some of whom oppose gay marriage, which has become a contentious social issue being fought state-by-state.

In California a judge last year overturned a ban on gay marriage, but no weddings can take place while the decision is being appealed. It could set national policy if the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.

Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage, and Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey approved civil unions. The first legal same-sex marriages in the United States took place in Massachusetts in 2004.

But gay marriage is banned in 39 states.

In New York a recent Siena poll found 58 percent of New Yorkers support gay marriage, while nationally the U.S. public is nearly evenly split, with 45 percent in favor and 46 percent opposed, according to a Pew Research poll released last month.

New York City’s marketing and tourism group NYC & Company said it was gearing up to turn the city into “the gay weddings destination.” “The new legislation is good news for the City’s $31 billion travel and tourism industry,” said NYC & Company Chief Executive George Fertitta.
New York’s Democrat-dominated Assembly voted 80-63 in favor of gay marriage last week and passed the amended legislation on Friday 82-47.

A key sticking point had been over an exemption that would allow religious officials to refuse to perform services or lend space for same-sex weddings. Most Republicans were concerned the legal protection was not strong enough, so legislative leaders worked with Cuomo to amend his original bill.

“God, not Albany, settled the definition of marriage a long time ago,” said Senator Ruben Diaz Sr., a Pentecostal minister and the only Democrat to vote against the measure.

However, fears of a slew of litigation arising from a possible religious exemption to New York’s proposed same-sex marriage law are not borne out by experience with similar laws in other states, legal experts say.

Sudden Inspection at Gay Bar Mars Victory Celebration for Some

An unannounced inspection that several agencies carried out at a gay bar in Manhattan on Friday night occurred at nearly the same time that patrons were celebrating the passage of legislation in Albany legalizing same-sex marriage.

Police officials said on Saturday that the inspection was part of a routine operation planned long ago. But Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, said that he was troubled by descriptions of what took place at the Eagle bar, on West 28th Street off 11th Avenue, and that the actions amounted to a raid.

“I am going to ask the police commissioner to conduct a formal investigation concerning the circumstances around this raid,” he added.

The inspection occurred late at night, Mr. Stringer said, and while it was “true that there are these multiagency inspections, I think this one was ill-conceived and ill-timed given the circumstances surrounding the marriage equality celebration, on Pride week.”

http://www.eaglenyc.com/index.php

According to those present, about 100 people were mingling at the Eagle, when representatives from the New York Police Department and three other city agencies, as well as from the State Liquor Authority, showed up, at nearly the same time as a vote by the State Senate to legalize same-sex marriage and as the thrill of victory was swirling through the place.

“I was on the roof deck, smoking a cigar and having drinks with friends, and all of a sudden, the police showed up and started shining flashlights in everyone’s face and offending everyone,” said Thomas J. Shevlin, a financial markets researcher and the treasurer of the Stonewall Democratic Club.

“Basically, it is offensive,” Mr. Shevlin, 40, said. “It is real serious harassment that they come out on pride weekend.”

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said the Eagle was one of four establishments in the 10th Precinct inspected on Friday under a program known as MARCH, or multiagency response to community hot spots.

He said every precinct in the city, except for Central Park, carried out such operations at what amounted to “a couple thousand clubs” each year.

The establishments are selected because they are the subjects of “chronic complaints” from community members that are mostly reported through the city’s 311 and 911 communications systems over concerns like excessive noise or fighting, Mr. Browne said. The inspections, he added, were planned weeks in advance.

He said the inspection at the Eagle led to six violations being issued: two from the police regarding unlicensed security; one from the Department of Environmental Protection regarding unnecessary noise; one from the Buildings Department for having no public assembly permit; and two from the liquor authority for “extension of premise,” and “failure to conform to application.”

Robert Berk, 50, the owner of the Eagle, said on Saturday that the operation’s timing was “bad.” The officers and other agents began entering, unannounced, about 10:30 p.m., he said, and eventually numbered about 20. They were “aggressive, but polite” as they examined the premises, he said, adding that they went over paperwork and inspected items like the ice makers and the licenses of security guards.

Mr. Berk, who is gay, and who described his bar as a “Levis and leather” establishment, added he expected to receive a list of violations in the mail.

“I definitely lost money last night because they made patrons wait outside in a line down the block,” Mr. Berk said. “I don’t know how much I have to pay, but it’s enough to matter.”

Christopher J. Borras, 46, was among those waiting to get in, finally gaining entry about 11:45 p.m., just as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was preparing to sign the marriage measure into law.

“I find interesting the timing,” said Mr. Borras, who had been at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village earlier that night. “I would just like to know from the police: `Why did they do that?’ To me, it is a blatant sign of intimidation and harassment, I mean, 42 years after the Stonewall riots and we still have to live in fear of the police disturbing our quiet enjoyment of life? I just don’t understand. We are very peaceful.”

Daniel P. Dromm, a city councilman from Queens who is gay, expressed concern on Saturday over reports over the years of officers entering bars on the Friday night before Gay Pride weekend.

“There needs to be some sensitivity to the importance of gay marriage being legalized in New York State, which means this vote for marriage is going to have national reverberations,” he said. “Not a good time for cops to be going into a gay bar for no urgent reason.”

On Saturday, accounts of what happened in Chelsea were pouring in to Mr. Stringer, Mr. Dromm and others and were being discussed both online and at gatherings around the city to celebrate the new law.

Some reacted angrily. Allen Roskoff, 61, a veteran gay-rights activist who was not at the Eagle, said, “In typical New York City Police Department fashion, the N.Y.P.D. demonstrated its disrespect for the gay community by raiding the Eagle mere moments after the passage of most important piece of gay rights legislation in history.”

But some accounts of the inspection diverged significantly, in places, from what the police described. For instance, Mr. Berk said the inspection lasted about two hours, while Mr. Browne said it was completed in about 45 minutes.

Along with flashlights being shined in people’s faces, lights were turned off and patrons were forced to empty their pockets “without probable cause,” Mr. Shevlin said.

Mr. Browne insisted that the inspection “had nothing to do with the vote” or with Gay Pride weekend. Those on the task force, he said, “are not seers; they don’t have a crystal ball that tells them when Albany is going to take up a piece of legislation.”

“We are treating everyone the same here,” he added. “It has nothing to do with the sexual preference of the patrons; it has to do with complaints. It is blind to who the club is and it was planned weeks before.” He also denied accusations of aggressive police action.

“The notion that anyone was searched or the lights were turned off is utter fabrication,” Mr. Browne said. The police, he said, lowered the music and turned the lights up a bit to see more clearly. “The only contact the police had with anyone there was the lieutenant shaking hands with the proprietor,” he said. The bar was not padlocked, and there were no arrests.

Mr. Berk said while he wished the inspection had been done during the day to avoid disrupting his business, the officers “were just doing their job.”

He planned to visit the 10th Precinct station house on Saturday, he said, to speak with commanders, with whom he said he had a good relationship.

A law enforcement official said the commander of the 10th Precinct who is responsible for determining a list of locations that were subject to chronic complaints, and were therefore eligible for the inspections, was Deputy Inspector Elisa Cokkinos.

 

CB Kirby – MR EAGLE 2011

CB Kirby