ALBANY—Here's a funny exchange between Jim Tedisco and Danny O'Donnell during last night's Assembly debate on same-sex marriage.
It starts with O'Donnell, the bill's sponsor, agreeing to yield to Tedisco, saying, "For the congressman, anything."
"I wish," Tedisco replied, referencing his recent loss to Scott Murphy in good humor. "Do you have 700 votes in the back of your trunk?"
"I'm a Democrat from New York City, you bet I do," O'Donnell replied.
Tedisco, sitting in the back row at the opposite side of the chamber, then asked O'Donnell if the legislation would permit polygamy.
O'Donnell replied that it would not. Tedisco eventually made his point that "what I see here is someone trying to fit into marriage a new definition that fits their agenda and their lifestyle. But when we move to another level, we have a boundary here."
His boundary, he said, would be at a man and woman. "Those who are being bisexual and say, 'I want to marry a woman and I want to marry a man,' are saying to you: you're being discriminatory."
The members I was sitting next to started to murmur.
Assemblyman Micah Kellner, who is bisexual, and unmarried, rose to clarify the point: There would still only be one wedding per bisexual person. And he would love to attend. Heterosexual or homosexual.
"I don't need a plus-one," he said. "I'm going to meet someone at the wedding no matter what."
