Marriage equality finally becomes a reality in New York with historic vote

Moments ago, in an incred­i­bly close vote, the New York State Sen­ate joined the New York State Assem­bly in vot­ing to make mar­riage equal­i­ty the law of the land in the Empire State. The roll call was thir­ty-three to twenty-nine.

The final approval of the Mar­riage Equal­i­ty Act of 2011 con­cludes an intense effort by pro-equal­i­ty activists to con­vince a hand­ful of unde­cid­ed Repub­li­can law­mak­ers to vote yes on the leg­is­la­tion. The four Repub­li­can votes were cru­cial to pas­sage of the bill, since Repub­li­cans nar­row­ly con­trol the Sen­ate, and one mem­ber of the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus (Rubén Díaz, Sr.) fierce­ly oppos­es mar­riage equality.

The bill now goes to Gov­er­nor Andrew Cuo­mo, who worked care­ful­ly behind the scenes to ensure that it would receive a vote in the Empire State’s upper cham­ber. With his sig­na­ture, New York will become the sixth state where mar­riage equal­i­ty is the law of the land, join­ing Mass­a­chu­setts, Con­necti­cut, Ver­mont, New Hamp­shire, Iowa, and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, where LGBT cou­ples can already wed.

The law is expect­ed to go into effect by mid­sum­mer, which means cou­ples can start mak­ing plans now for sum­mer weddings.

NPI con­grat­u­lates our broth­ers and sis­ters who call New York their home on this land­mark civ­il rights vic­to­ry. This is a great moment for not only the peo­ple of the Empire State, but for all of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. When­ev­er a blow is struck against dis­crim­i­na­tion and intol­er­ance, it is a great cause for celebration.

Who will be next? Who will fol­low New York’s lead?

Per­haps it will be us.

In just a few short years, our Leg­is­la­ture has banned dis­crim­i­na­tion on the basis of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, per­mit­ted LGBT cou­ples to reg­is­ter as domes­tic part­ners, and then expand­ed their rights under an “every­thing but mar­riage” law, which vot­ers upheld in Novem­ber 2009 to the great dis­may of the forces of big­otry. Mar­riage equal­i­ty is now our final fron­tier. And unlike many oth­er states, to get to mar­riage equal­i­ty, we don’t have to un-amend our Con­sti­tu­tion… because it was nev­er tar­nished with an anti-equal­i­ty pro­vi­sion to begin with.

Until the day when we, too, enjoy mar­riage equal­i­ty, the work to win over hearts and minds con­tin­ues. Many peo­ple across this coun­try who pre­vi­ous­ly opposed mar­riage equal­i­ty have final­ly begun to real­ize that allow­ing LGBT cou­ples to wed does not threat­en any het­ero­sex­u­al cou­ple’s mar­riage. The change in pub­lic opin­ion that we are wit­ness­ing is very wel­come and heartening.

POSTSCRIPT: Gov­er­nor Andrew Cuo­mo has just signed the leg­is­la­tion. He evi­dent­ly did­n’t want to waste any time fol­low­ing the vote. Thus, the Mar­riage Equal­i­ty Act will go into effect one month from today.