Gay News

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New York same sex marriage vote delayed

By Dan Wiessner
ALBANY, New York | Fri Jun 17, 2011 3:50pm EDT

(Reuters) - New York state senators will not vote on a bill to legalize same-sex marriage before Monday, the senate majority leader said on Friday.

New York could become the sixth state to allow gay marriage if a bill introduced by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, is approved by the Senate. Only one more Republican senator needs to support the measure for it to pass.

The stakes are high because New York would become the most populous U.S. state to allow gay marriage approved by lawmakers, handing the gay rights movement a huge victory.

But with lawmakers set to break for summer recess on Monday, and with Republicans in the majority in the state Senate, it remained unclear if the measure would even be allowed to come to a vote.

When asked by reporters if there was any chance of the Senate voting on the issue before Monday, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos said: "No."

Two Republican senators have already publicly said they will back the proposal, while one Democrat senator opposes it -- leaving New York's 62-member Senate split.

Republican senators were discussing the gay marriage bill and other issues on Friday and would continue talks on Monday, Skelos said.

"There is a concern right now as to the unintended consequences of some of the religious clauses, carve-outs, protections, and we're reviewing that," Skelos said.

Skelos said Cuomo indicated to him on Friday that he would be open to amending the proposal to include more specific exemptions for religious groups.

The bill does not compel any member of the clergy to conduct same-sex marriages, but some Republican lawmakers are concerned the legal protection is not strong enough.

"Republicans need to understand, no one wants to force the Catholic church to marry gay couples. There are plenty of existing protections," said Richard Socarides, the head of national gay-rights group Equality Matters, referring to parts of the state Constitution that protect religious groups.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, New York's top Catholic official, told a radio show Friday that Cuomo included the Church's lawyers in the drafting of the bill.

The state-by-state battle over gay marriage has become a contentious U.S. social issue ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections. Five states and the District of Columbia allow gay marriage and four states have civil unions.

New York's Democrat-dominated Assembly voted 80 to 63 in favor of the bill on Wednesday.

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. But gay marriage is specifically banned in 39 states.

The first legal same-sex marriages in the United States took place in Massachusetts in 2004.

A recent Siena poll found 58 percent of New Yorkers support same-sex marriage.

If the bill passes, same-sex couples could start marrying in New York 30 days later.

(Writing by Michelle Nichols, Editing by Greg McCune)

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U.N. Gay Rights Protection Resolution Passes, Hailed As 'Historic Moment'


By Frank Jordans 06/17/11 -- 03:53 PM ET

GENEVA -- The United Nations endorsed the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people for the first time ever Friday, passing a resolution hailed as historic by the U.S. and other backers and decried by some African and Muslim countries.

The declaration was cautiously worded, expressing "grave concern" about abuses because of sexual orientation and commissioning a global report on discrimination against gays.

But activists called it an important shift on an issue that has divided the global body for decades, and they credited the Obama administration's push for gay rights at home and abroad.

"This represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement.

Following tense negotiations, members of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council narrowly voted in favor of the declaration put forward by South Africa, with 23 votes in favor and 19 against.

Backers included the U.S., the European Union, Brazil and other Latin American countries. Those against included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Pakistan. China, Burkina Faso and Zambia abstained, Kyrgyzstan didn't vote and Libya was suspended from the rights body earlier.

The resolution expressed "grave concern at acts of violence and discrimination, in all regions of the world, committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation and gender identity."

More important, activists said, it also established a formal U.N. process to document human rights abuses against gays, including discriminatory laws and acts of violence. According to Amnesty International, consensual same-sex relations are illegal in 76 countries worldwide, while harassment and discrimination are common in many more.

"Today's resolution breaks the silence that has been maintained for far too long," said John Fisher of the gay rights advocacy group ARC International.

The resolution calls for a panel discussion next spring with "constructive, informed and transparent dialogue on the issue of discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against" gays, lesbians and transgender people.

The prospect of having their laws scrutinized in this way went too far for many of the council's 47-member states.

"We are seriously concerned at the attempt to introduce to the United Nations some notions that have no legal foundation," said Zamir Akram, Pakistan's envoy to the U.N. in Geneva, speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Nigeria claimed the proposal went against the wishes of most Africans. A diplomat from the northwest African state of Mauritania called the resolution "an attempt to replace the natural rights of a human being with an unnatural right."

Boris Dittrich of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch said it was important for the U.S. and Western Europe to persuade South Africa to take the lead on the resolution so that other non-Western countries would be less able to claim the West was imposing its values.

At the same time, he noted that the U.N. has no enforcement mechanism to back up the resolution. "It's up to civil society to name and shame those governments that continue abuses," Dittrich said.

The Obama administration has been pushing for gay rights both domestically and internationally.

In March, the U.S. issued a nonbinding declaration in favor of gay rights that gained the support of more than 80 countries at the U.N. In addition, Congress recently repealed the ban on gays openly serving in the military, and the Obama administration said it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the U.S. law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

The vote in Geneva came at a momentous time for the gay rights debate in the U.S. Activists across the political spectrum were on edge Friday as New York legislators considered a bill that would make the state the sixth – and by far the biggest – to allow same-sex marriage.

Asked what good the U.N. resolution would do for gays and lesbians in countries that opposed the resolution, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel Baer said it was a signal "that there are many people in the international community who stand with them and who support them, and that change will come."

"It's a historic method of tyranny to make you feel that you are alone," he said. "One of the things that this resolution does for people everywhere, particularly LGBT people everywhere, is remind them that they are not alone."

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Associated Press writer David Crary in New York contributed to this report.