New York governor signs law
approving gay marriage

(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  mcould 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  mistate-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.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/25/us-gaymarriage-newyork-idUSTRE75N5ZA20110625

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