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Sunday, September 20, 2009
Archives > Gay City News > News
EXCLUSIVE: Bloomberg Puts Gay Marriage Chances This Year at "Zero, Zero"Mayor says he can deliver GOP votes in Senate, while charging Thompson is MIABY PAUL SCHINDLEREven as he put the chances of moving a gay marriage bill in Albany this fall at “zero, zero,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg argued that he has the political clout to win support from key New York Republican state senators, including two from the city who are vociferous in their opposition.
As early as 2005, the mayor pledged to lobby the Legislature to enact marriage equality legislation passed twice since then by the State Assembly and actively pushed by Governor David A. Paterson. In a series of high profile appearances this year, Bloomberg has reiterated that commitment. In an exclusive interview with Gay City News on September 17 -- a campaign aide said it was his first since City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., officially became his Democratic opponent -- the mayor was asked whether GOP senators such as Brooklyn’s Martin Golden and Queens’ Frank Padavan were persuadable. “If it came down to it, I suspect yes,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t speak for them. When you are from the city, even your conservative base is more liberal than elsewhere, and also that’s where I can have some influence. If it came to you needed their votes, that’s where I can do something.” That influence, that ability to do something comes from the mayor’s extraordinary level of support for the Republican State Senate caucus during the past two election cycles, 2005-6 and 2007-8 -- when he contributed $1.175 million dollars in total to its campaign coffers. Writing in the Village Voice, Wayne Barrett cited reporting in Newsday that pointed out that the “bulk” of a separate $1.2 million contribution the mayor made last year to the New York State Independence Party was used to support four Senate candidates, including Padavan and two other gay marriage opponents who went down to defeat. Shams Tarek, the campaign spokesman last fall for pro-marriage equality Democrat James F. Gennaro, who came within a whisker of unseating Padavan, told Barrett that Bloomberg’s support for Padavan was the key factor that allowed the incumbent to survive. The November 2006 and 2008 elections saw gay marriage advocates, in contrast, opening up their wallets to support the Democratic takeover of the traditionally GOP-led Senate, after it became clear the Republican leadership would not countenance a floor vote on the issue. “I’m the main funder,” Bloomberg said of his ability to sway the views of Republican senators. “You know, you can’t dictate every piece of legislation, and I don’t want to say that they’re bribable. But they know where I stand, and they want me to be a supporter.” If Bloomberg were to move Padavan and Golden, it would be a remarkable feat indeed. Padavan, first elected in 1972, has tried in years past to push a state Defense of Marriage Act. Last November, a newsletter from the Association of Politically Active Christians reported that the Reverend Duane Motley called Padavan “the staunchest ally of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom in the Senate.” That group, which Motley founded along with the anti-gay New Yorker’s Family Research Foundation, describes itself as a “ministry [that] exists to influence legislation and legislators for the Lord Jesus Christ.” Golden was among five Republican senators represented last year by the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based right-wing litigation group, seeking to overturn Paterson’s directive that state agencies recognize valid same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. When the governor introduced his marriage equality bill this past April, one day after New York’s new archbishop was installed, Golden called his action “not just a slap in the face to Catholics, but to all New Yorkers who respect what the Catholic Church is and what it stands for.” Given such hard-line opposition to gay marriage, how can Bloomberg expect to move Republicans such as Padavan and Golden? And given all the asks that a New York City mayor has of the State Legislature, would they view a request for a pro-marriage equality vote as among his top priorities? “I think if it came up and that they were the deciding votes, yes,” Bloomberg responded. “I think if you asked them today, they’d say, ‘I don’t have to worry about it. When is it going to come up?’” And perhaps the mayor doesn’t have to worry about it either, at least between now and the November election. “I don’t know how to get it to come up,” he said, explaining his view that having the issue move to the Senate floor may prove more difficult than rounding up the votes. “If you want my honest opinion,” Bloomberg continued, the Senate leadership is unlikely to move a gay marriage bill “when I don’t see these guys willing to stand up for less controversial issues.” Despite the fact that the number of states with legal gay marriage quickly shot up to six this past spring, the mayor said, “I ‘m scared to death that the country is going in the wrong direction… I think on other LGBT issues they are clearly moving in the direction that I think they should go and you probably do too. It’s the marriage thing that I don’t see.” Even in New York, where Paterson and his predecessor Eliot Spitzer have been outspoken in supporting gay marriage, Bloomberg argued, “Whether anybody who runs for governor next year will stand up for gay marriage, I’ll bet you 25 cents no.” Though the Democrats did finally achieve a majority in the State Senate last November, the mayor who vows to deliver Republican votes views the composition of the Democratic caucus as a bar to action. “There are a lot of traditional Democratic communities that are very conservative,” he said. “The black community is very conservative. The Latino. You know, I don’t win any points with these communities when I go in their churches and point out I’m very pro-choice. I’m very pro-gay rights. I’m anti-gun. I’m very pro-immigration. I believe in Darwin.” The fierce opposition to gay marriage by Senator Ruben Diaz of the Bronx and Queens Senator Shirley Huntley –– an African-American Democrat who told the New York Times that she rebuffed poet Maya Angelou’s lobbying on the issue by saying, “If they gave me a million dollars, tax free, I just wouldn’t vote for it” –– backs up the point the mayor made. But if winning votes from black and Latino senators is a challenge, what message would be sent to John Sampson, the African American from Brooklyn who now heads up the Senate Democratic caucus, if gay leaders, especially white ones, stood with Bloomberg in his race against Thompson, who would be only the second black mayor in the city’s history? In a 30-minute interview in which Bloomberg had been consistently forthcoming, this time he changed the subject. “Well, his strategy is to me –– I can’t speak for him –– he’s afraid to go near any of these issues,” charged the mayor, referring to Thompson’s posture on gay rights in this year’s campaign. “Maybe it’s the fact that I’m independently wealthy and I’m 67 years old, but my attitude is if you want me, you want me.” Bloomberg’s assertion that he’s more outspoken on gay rights than Thompson is indicative of just how aggressive, even audacious his campaign is in forcing his opponent back on his heels at every chance it gets. Without exception, the Democrat has beaten the mayor to the punch in advocating major pro-gay positions. Thompson was already supportive of gay marriage when first elected comptroller in 2001; Bloomberg voiced his support only in February 2005, the same day he announced he would appeal a pro-marriage equality ruling from a Manhattan district court judge. The comptroller supports comprehensive AIDS education, including classroom condom demonstrations, opposed by Bloomberg; a bill that would force contractors doing business with the city to provide gay couples the same benefits given to straight married couples, which the mayor successfully challenged in court; and the anti-bullying Dignity in All Schools Act, which became law in 2004 over a mayoral veto, but was never implemented. Last fall, the mayor and the school chancellor did launch the Respect for All initiative, which they say achieves much of what DASA would have accomplished. Bloomberg and his campaign are making the argument that now, when it counts, Thompson, who hopes to galvanize people of color communities in November, has lost his voice on gay rights. When an aide reminded him that Bloomberg had mentioned marriage equality in his primary night rally, the mayor explained, “Yeah, I put that in because you don’t want any community to think you’re going to walk away.” Unspoken by the mayor or his aide was the fact that Thompson made no similar mention of marriage equality when he accepted the Democratic nomination the same evening. Bloomberg’s campaign has noted that the mayor was there when Paterson announced introduction of his marriage equality bill at an April press conference in Manhattan, while Thompson was absent. The comptroller was also not seen at a massive gay marriage rally near Times Square in May addressed by both the mayor and the governor. On that occasion, Thompson’s aides charged that the comptroller was denied a chance to speak by the event’s organizer, the Human Rights Campaign. HRC denied that the decision was made at the behest of the mayor. How successful Bloomberg will be in wresting top LGBT endorsements at the expense of his Democratic rival remains to be seen. In late June, the two campaigns within days engaged in a dueling rollout of endorsements. While Thompson held a press conference with a wide array of longtime queer Democratic activists, the mayor’s list boasted no small number of gay heavy hitters, including the restaurateur and AIDS activist Florent Morellet; the Republican ex-mayor of Tempe, Arizona, Neil Giuliano, who had just left the top job at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; Richard Socarides, White House LGBT liaison to President Bill Clinton; Sean Strub, the founder of Poz magazine; and Corey Johnson, one of the first activists to call for a national march on Washington planned for October 11. The two biggest endorsements, however, have to date remained elusive. The Empire State Pride Agenda, which is leading the charge on marriage equality in Albany, has so far been silent. And despite fevered speculation all year that she might give her nod to the mayor whom some believe she has been too close to, Christine Quinn, the out lesbian City Council speaker who just last week held off two spirited primary challengers, has also been mum. Reader Comments
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Latest News On July 12, 1996, the US House of Representatives, caught up in a sudden nationwide frenzy about the prospect that the Hawaii state courts might be moving toward legalization of marriage by same-sex couples, passed the Defense of Marriage Act in a 342-67 vote.
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