Spitzer aims to legalize gay marriage

from newsday

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer pledged Monday to introduce legislation in the next few weeks that would legalize gay marriage in New York, even while conceding the state Legislature was not ready to agree with him on the issue.

"I do not think there is a realistic shot that it gets passed, but I will submit it because it's a statement of principle that I believe in and I want to begin that dynamic," Spitzer said.

Spitzer's move speeds up his timetable for putting the issue in front of state lawmakers. While the New York Democrat had pledged during his campaign for governor last year to propose such legislation, he had subsequently said only that he would do so before the end of his first four-year term.

Spitzer said Monday that he had decided it was time to press ahead with the issue.

Spitzer had previously announced his legislative priorities, including an overhaul of New York's campaign finance law, for the remainder of the Legislature's regular 2007 session that is to conclude in late June. He had not included gay marriage among those priorities.

Spitzer explained that his earlier list of priorities was based on "the art of the possible." Thus far, state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, has not taken a position on gay marriage while Joseph Bruno, the state Senate's Republican majority leader, has said he is opposed.

Spitzer had said he expects a multiyear battle over the gay marriage issue.

Currently, gay marriage is only legal in the United States in Massachusetts.

Spitzer plan to quickly move ahead on the gay marriage issue was first reported in Monday's editions of The New York Times.

I will never understand why this is such an issue.

Who cares if gay people get married - good for them.

Live and let live!

Personally I think marriage is outdated, after 8 years with the same person & not being married I have figured it is all about throwing an expensive party & wearing pretty clothes but whatever. Honestly, they need to redraw up what it means & ONLY people who are emotionally mature enough to be married should be. This issue of having a penis & a vagina is the worst idea for marriage. It should be hard to get into & easy to get out of. If gays are interested in being married then more power to them, I still wouldn't do it for all the tea in China.

I don't know too much about it, but there are all the financial and other reasons, like taxes, pensions and health insurance crap that married people benifit from.

Like if a woman's husband dies, she gets his pension (if he has one) and his insurance and any money he may have had in a bank account and such.

If you just live with someone and they die you have no claim to any of that stuff.

Heck, me and my wife were married by the mayor in the small town we lived in, no big party or anything.
And now that we look back 18 years later, we're so glad we did it that way and saved the cash!

Funny, me and my buddies got in a heated debate about out gov't last night.

Anyways...gay marriage is, and has never been a federal issue. Its Bush's way of trying to get our attention elsewhere, and guess what!! It worked! ZOMG!

Gay marriage is a state issue.

If they want to be miserable too, then so be it.

I I think that gay people should have the same rights as everyone else, marriage included.