Sometimes statistics can give rise to a piece of journalism. New York Times magazine contributing writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis, a resident of Boston, found that 700 gay men age 29 or younger were wed in the state of Massachusetts between May 2004 and June 2007.

What resulted is a 7000-word New York Times magazine cover story, published this weekend.

This number sounds like a statistical anomaly! It certainly is.  read more »

The Assembly will debate a gay marriage bill today, according to the bill's prime sponsor, Danny O'Donnell of Manhattan.

"That's right," he told me. "I'm a little nervous."

He said that the bill was reported out of the judiciary committee yesterday "with no negative votes by the Democrats," but he stopped short of making any predictions about its fate.

It should be said that the mere fact that the Assembly is having this debate is historic, and it certainly has the potential -- depending on how things go -- to become national news.

They Assembly is in session now, and the debate is expected later today. You can watch the session live here.

At a Crain's breakfast this morning in midtown, Eliot Spitzer said that the way the state budget was negotiated in his first year was "wrong" and not something he wanted to replicate in the future. But he said that the "back and forth" he had with the health care industry was worth it because it had resulted in a reduction of the rate of Medicaid spending.

Also, when asked why gay marriage had not been included in his list of legislative priorities, Spitzer said that he considers it something that "is not likely to be passed in the next ten weeks" of the legislative session. He emphasized that this did not represent a change in his feeling that it should be law.

A copy of his prepared remarks advocating cleaner energy use in New York is here.