Yesterday was a depressing day for New Yorkers. The State Senate rejected a bill that would have given gay couples the right to get married. The 38 to 24 vote—32 votes would have been needed to pass—was especially tough coming from Democrat-heavy New York. If gay marriage can't pass here, where can it?
Yet again, politics were the driving force in the outcome of the vote. Four of the Democrats who voted against the bill were freshmen Senators and most of the others that voted against it were also deemed “politically vulnerable.”
It’s hard to express how upsetting this is. You’d think that after all this time we’d be able to put politics aside and do the right thing. In the video below, State Senator Diane Savino gets to the heart of the matter and discusses how we actually treat marriage in our society and what supporting gay marriage in the government would really mean for religious marriage and the “sanctity” of marriage. It’s an inspiring speech; I can only hope that because of the negative vote more people will hear it and change their minds about giving all Americans the legal right to marry.
photo from alex-s Flickr photostream/Creative Commons
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