ALBANY, N.Y.,: New York’s state legislature gave final approval to same-sex marriages, a key victory for gay rights ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.
New York will become the sixth and most populous US state to allow gay marriage. State senators voted 33-29 to approve marriage equality legislation introduced by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat in his first year of office.
”New York has finally torn down the barrier that prevented same-sex couples from exercising the freedom to marry and from receiving the fundamental protections that so many couples and families take for granted,” Cuomo said in a statement.
After Cuomo signs the bill into law, 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.
”I have to define doing the right thing as treating all persons with equality and that equality includes within the definition of marriage,” said Republican Senator Stephen Saland, speaking before the bill was passed.
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 riots following 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 New York State 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.
President Barack Obama, who attended a fundraiser in New York on Thursday for Gay Pride Week, has a nuanced stance on gay issues. Experts say he could risk alienating large portions of the electorate if he came out strongly in favor of such matters as gay marriage before the 2012 elections. (PTI)