Empire State Pride Agenda

Here’s the video in which David Paterson announced same-sex marriages performed in other states will be recognized in New York. It was presented at the May 17 Empire State Pride Agenda fund-raiser in Rochester (and just posted on YouTube yesterday).

At about the 2:20 mark, Paterson says, “I am directing agency heads that we will recognize marriages conducted outside our state right here in New York State.”

With his characteristic humor, Paterson ends the five-and-a-half minute video by saying, “I am David Paterson and I approve this message. Nobody made me make this message. Nobody cajoled or coerced me into giving these thoughts.”

And here is the text of Paterson’s May 14 memo to agency heads with the same instructions:

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One of the more interesting moments from last night's Empire State Pride Agenda’s fund-raiser: Assemblyman Danny O’Donnell telling attendees that they have to protect lawmakers who voted for his bill to legalize same-sex marriage because if any of them lose, for whatever reason, it’ll be tied to this vote.

Also noteworthy was state Senator Malcolm Smith’s speech. Last year, he waffled briefly on whether to support gay marriage. Last night, he said he threw away his speech, “because how I feel about the issue in my heart and how I feel about the LGBT community, there is no reason for anybody to write anything for me.”

And I can’t pass on noting Smith’s opening remarks acknowledging to other attendees: “Tell me, don’t we have a gorgeous and eloquent First Lady for the state of New York? Congressman Weiner, don’t be jealous now. I’m talking about Silda.”

Yesterday was National Coming Out Day, and it also marked the first time labor leader Randi Weingarten publicly discussed the fact that she is a lesbian.

Weingarten, the head of the United Federation of Teachers, made her remarks on the subject last night at the Empire State Pride Agenda’s fund-raiser, where she won the group’s award for community service after being introduced by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

But when I spoke to Weingarten right after the speech, she said no, she didn’t consider it her ‘coming out speech.’

“I think it's just a big room and you know, I used this to make a point, but no," she said. "I've been--anybody who knows me knows I've never been hidden about who I am.”

I also asked Weingarten, who has led the UFT since 1998, why she had chosen that moment to make her most public comments about her sexual identity.

“I won the award tonight," she said. "I rarely talk about my personal life, but it felt important to make the point about tolerance, respect and equality. And sometimes, in order to make a point you got to walk a walk. But anybody who knows me knows I've never been hidden about it.”

Talk about unsolicited praise.

Referring to the notion that the 2008 Democrats are more supportive of gay rights than the Republicans, influential consultant and gay rights activist Ethan Geto offered me the following caveat:

"They are going to be so much more supportive than the Republican candidates, unless we have an anomaly -- and it's Rudy Giuliani. Because I must say, Rudy Giuliani is pretty damned gay friendly. I was a lobbyist during his administration on gay rights issues, and Giuliani -- I couldn't get Vallone (then City Council Speaker Peter Vallone) to sign off on the Domestic Partnership Bill, because he was afraid Giuliani was going to oppose him and leave him hanging out there and make him look bad - and Giuliani went and took the leadership."

UPDATE: Ben has a fascinating memo from the Empire State Pride Agenda detailing Giuliani's pragmatic "accommodation" with gay New York.

-- Jason Horowitz

Three days into the new administration, the Empire State Pride Agenda released its ranking of state lawmakers and their positions on gay marriage.

The ranking shows some recent movement towards the pro- side in the Assembly, with a total 47 members who have now at least "indicated support", up from 35 when the group put out their last scorecard on September 15. In the Senate, the number went to 16 from 14.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Bronx Democratic chairman Jose Rivera and newly elected Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries are in the "position unknown or unclear" category.

And the apparent level of overall support in the Senate appears to have increased despite the fact that two pro-gay marriage Senators, Republican Nick Spano and Democrat Ada Smith, were replaced this year by Democratic freshmen who are also in the "unknown" column: Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Shirley Huntley.

Incidentally, ESPA spokesman Joe Tarver emailed to say that the group is pretty happy with how Eliot Spitzer addressed the issue in his speech yesterday, even though, as noted earlier, the new governor didn't mention it at all.

From the email:

"Governor Spitzer has been very public about his support for marriage for same-sex couples. He has also said marriage for our families will become law in New York State and that he will introduce a program bill aimed at accomplishing this. We fully expect that he will follow through on his promises. We will let his actions do the talking on marriage and on the other issues that are important to our community."

-- Azi Paybarah

Writing for Gay City News City Hall News, gay activist Allen Roskoff had a column about the Empire State Pride Agenda dinner and calls out Democratic Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein for stalling legislation to legalize gay marriage.

During the night, people are now talking about Assembly Member Helene Weinstein, who heads the Assembly Judiciary Committee and has kept the Richard Gottfried-sponsored marriage equality bill buried in her committee. She is listed by ESPA as having a "position on marriage equality for same-sex couples unknown or unclear." She must come out for the bill, and have it passed in her committee, or her position is totally unacceptable. Perhaps her friends in the Assembly need to hold her accountable and stop covering for her. I am told that she does not go to LGBT endorsement meetings or events or return questionnaires. Hmmm, what is this all about?

It's another example of how gay activists are increasingly comfortable with the 'with us or against us' argument on the issue of gay marriage. Nathan Riley makes the same case, with less acidity, over here.

-- Azi Paybarah

Vito Fossella has 1,558 friends on his MySpace page, and some of them are, uh, not conservative.

Andrew Sullivan detects hypocrisy in the Republican contention that rebuking Mark Foley would have made them look homophobic. "They don't seem too worried about appearing homophobic when it comes to winning elections, do they?"

Ben says that the Empire State Pride Agenda dinner last night was a slap at Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and other electeds who aren't as progressive on gay marriage as the group would like. ESPA disagrees.

The reader who found Sheldon Silver's impersonation of Robert DeNiro on YouTube.com has found another online gem.

NARAL goes both ways in the state senate race in Westchester.

Daily Gotham is under attack from porn pushers and may require people to register with the site before being allowed to post comments.

John Liu gets ignored by the MTA.

Tom Kean, Jr. says Dennis Hastert should resign.

Massachusetts may make their elections more like the kind in New York.

Tom Hayden is in town to talk about the Chicago 8 and, I'm prepared to guess, the war in Iraq.

And pictured above is Queens Borough President Helen Marshall at a City Hall press conference.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

Liz Benjamin says that presidential hopeful Russ Feingold will speak at the Empire State Pride Agenda annual fundraiser on October 5th.

The richest man in America, Bill Gates, has maxed out his contributions to Bill Frist's political committees. He also gave $2,000 to Sen. George Allen.

That outrageous North Carolina congressional candidate, Vern Robinson, has another ad attacking his opponent in an unusual way. "Instead of spending money on cancer research, Brad Miller spent your money to study the masturbation habits of old men."

Amanda Gordon has pictures of Rudy Giuliani, Joel Klein, Barbara Walters and others from the Met Opera's opening night gala.

Daily Gotham says the Mayor's newly created Sustainability Advisory Board is meeting Wednesday behind closed doors.

Phase two of the Atlantic Yards Project, the one with the apartments, has no real deadline.

Somebody created a Wikipedia-like database political opinions.

EnWhySeaWonk spots someone reading "The Truth About The Jew" on the L train.

"Unmarried women unhappy with status quo," and other key findings of a "ground breaking" report from Greenberg, Quinlan Rosner Research is here. Eligible voters who enjoy long walks in the park, read on.

It's official. More people have been killed serving in Iraq and Afghanistan than were killed on Sept. 11, notes Greg Sargent.

And pictured above is the very kind Mark Green campaign aide who sent me (and other reporters?) a thank you note after the campaign.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

Tonight, the Empire State Pride Agenda will hold rallies across the state in opposition to today's ruling against same sex marriage.

Tomorrow, the Assembly will hold a hearing on New York City's weather-related emergency response and evacuation plans at 250 Broadway.

The Park Slope Food Coop will be showing A Walk Through the Footprint, a short film by George Lerner about the residents in the Atlantic Yards Project footprint who may face eviction.

—Nicole Brydson

The Times covers Carl Andrews' show of support yesterday.

The Empire State Pride Agenda endorses Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson.

Ben Smith reports on Sheldon Silver's meeting with the Dolans and Mark Green under investigation.

The Albany Times Union follows up on Pat Healy's story yesterday on the soon to be publicized personal letters of KT McFarland.

—Nicole Brydson

Sorry, we don't normally do this, but it seems to me that Joe Bruno will have to do more to "court" the gay vote than he did yesterday. When reporters asked him about his having once called homosexuality an "abnormal lifestyle," he responded:

"I'm not going to respond because you're looking for trouble and I'm looking for peace," he said. "That was 12 years ago."

Ten of those years were the ones in which Bruno did not allow the Sexual Orientation Discrimination Act, passed every year by the Assembly, on to the Senate floor for a vote. It finally passed in December 2002.

Do not expect the Empire State Pride Agenda to point this out again--he was their chief villain through much of the 1990's. And why should they? If they've got him now, they may as well try to keep him.

It's just that this courting would seem a little more genuine if Bruno were willing to explain how he came to change his mind so radically on the issue. But then, he'd actually be articulating the case for gay civil-rights legislation. Is that still not a good idea for a Rensselaer Republican?

- Tom McGeveran

It probably won't surprise you to learn that Sean Patrick Maloney, the only gay candidate in the AG race, just picked up the endorsement of the Empire State Pride Agenda.

I know ESPA doesn't only or even always support gay candidates. But anyone care to speculate who, between Green and Cuomo, would have gotten their endorsement and early fund-raising support if Maloney weren't running?

- Tom McGeveran

Another turn in what would be an internal gay-community flap over how to deal with Hillary Clinton would probably not be terribly interesting, if not for the recantation that an Upstate Democrat, Matthew John, offers in this widely-circulated email:

You may have read in the paper recently about individuals prescribed Ambien getting into car accidents and having no knowledge of their actions. Well in my case I was driving my computer while taking Ambien. I wrote a rambling email regarding [the Empire State Pride Agenda], that had I been fully aware of my actions, I would have worded very differently.

I had been troubled by the position that the director of EPSA had taken in regards to not financially supporting Senator Clinton and in turn, interpreted this as not supporting Senator Clinton -- an easy connection to make when your brain has been re-wired.

I appreciate Jim Rolls -- reasoned reply to my rant and thank him for taking the time to educate me on all the good things that ESPA has done and I suspect will continue to do in the future.

Please accept my apologies for the way in which I addressed this issue. The issue of whom to support and who is worthy of our support seems to be garnering much interest in the GLBT community.

I can think of a politician or two who might find that line handy.

Some New York gay politicos are standing up for Hillary despite her opposition to same-sex marriage, which led the head of the state's main gay-rights group to suggest gay donors stop giving her money.

Matthew John, an Upstate Democratic Committee member, is calling on gays to "refuse to lend our names to support or buy tickets to [Empire State Pride Agenda's] Gay Brunch In April in Buffalo to support ESPA's partisan fundraisers.... Isn't it the job of disgruntled republican henchmen to sling this kid of mud?

Actually, I'm having trouble recalling a Republican henchman smearing someone for opposing gay marriage. But maybe I don't pay enough attention.

In any case, Jay Leno had another take:

"More problems for Hillary Clinton. The head of New York state's leading gay rights group describes Hillary Clinton as a disappointment on same-sex marriage. Today, her husband Bill described her as a disappointment on opposite-sex marriage."

A couple of weeks ago, Empire State Pride Agenda executive director Alan Van Capelle's criticisms of Hillary, obtained by The Politicker, made national news. Since then, he's been declining interviews, but he has an op-ed in Gay City News today which -- though it doesn't mention Hillary -- lays out a political agenda for a movement that's feeling pretty strong right now, and that's trying to leverage the activism that's politically important in New York, and the money that's politically important nationally, into political clout.

Without naming names, he makes his criticism fairly clear:

In the last two years, some of the meanest, ugliest homophobes began to wage war against our community. It seemed that every day brought new attacks. There were constitutional amendments and threats of a Defense of Marriage Act. They said we were a threat to the sanctity of marriage, as if we were a people incapable of real love or devoid of a spiritual life. They said we were unfit to parent children. We were vilified.

As New Yorkers, we know what to do when a friend of ours is attacked — we fight back and defend that friend. But, where were our friends? Where were the people we voted for and whose job it is to represent us? Where were the people we counted on to look into those television cameras and say that they knew us and that we were not those things. Would it really be so hard in 2006 to say, "I have LGBT constituents--they are upstanding people, wonderful parents and they don't deserve to be treated as second-class citizens"?

Most of our friends were silent; maybe they were afraid. All I know for sure is that most of them were nowhere to be found and that some in our community were making excuses for them.

One other tidibit: his group's political action arm, he says, is planning to spend $200,000 this statewide election cycle. That's quite a bit, and could affect the politics of the issue of marriage, which is expected to emerge from the courts soon.

A bitter battle among Manhattan politicians and gay activists is threatening to scuttle the landmark  read more »