Three days into the new administration, the Empire State Pride Agenda released its ranking of state lawmakers and their positions on gay marriage.
The ranking shows some recent movement towards the pro- side in the Assembly, with a total 47 members who have now at least “indicated support”, up from 35 when the group put out their last scorecard on September 15. In the Senate, the number went to 16 from 14.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Bronx Democratic chairman Jose Rivera and newly elected Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries are in the “position unknown or unclear” category.
And the apparent level of overall support in the Senate appears to have increased despite the fact that two pro-gay marriage Senators, Republican Nick Spano and Democrat Ada Smith, were replaced this year by Democratic freshmen who are also in the “unknown” column: Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Shirley Huntley.
Incidentally, ESPA spokesman Joe Tarver emailed to say that the group is pretty happy with how Eliot Spitzer addressed the issue in his speech yesterday, even though, as noted earlier, the new governor didn’t mention it at all.
From the email:
“Governor Spitzer has been very public about his support for marriage for same-sex couples. He has also said marriage for our families will become law in New York State and that he will introduce a program bill aimed at accomplishing this. We fully expect that he will follow through on his promises. We will let his actions do the talking on marriage and on the other issues that are important to our community.”
— Azi Paybarah