New York’s Stunning Vote for Marriage

Chuck Donovan / December 03, 2009

The case for historical inevitability took another hit on Wednesday as the New York State Senate rejected a bill to redefine traditional marriage by a wide margin, 38-24. In the days before the vote, and especially after the New York House voted for marriage redefinition by a margin of 89-52 on Wednesday, media reports like this one in the New York Observer suggested that the Democratic majority in the Senate would allow a vote only if they were confident it would pass.

Instead, eight Democrats joined all 30 Republicans in the chamber to reject the bill after a personal and emotional debate in which Martin Luther King and the history of civil rights were invoked on both sides. In the end, Senator Ruben Diaz of the Bronx rose to counter suggestions that traditional marriage enjoyed the support of only a handful of New Yorkers. “Not only the evangelicals, not only the Jews, not only the Muslims, not only the Catholics, but also the people oppose it,” Diaz stated as the roll call went forward. (more…)