by digby
Gov. Eliot Spitzer will introduce a bill in the coming weeks to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, his spokeswoman said Friday, a move that would propel New York to the forefront of one of the most contentious issues in politics.
Though he has long voiced support for same-sex marriage and promised during his campaign last year to introduce legislation to legalize it, Mr. Spitzer did not mention the issue in his State of the State speech in January or in remarks a week ago outlining his priorities for the remainder of the legislative session, which ends June 21.
But the spokeswoman, Christine Anderson, said that Mr. Spitzer would not back away from his campaign pledge.
“The governor made a commitment to advance a program bill, and he will fulfill that commitment during this legislative session,” Ms. Anderson said, using the term that refers to legislation introduced directly by the governor rather than through a state agency or by the Legislature.
I assume from the tone of the article that this is not likely to pass, which is a shame. But I admire Spitzer for doing it, getting it on the record and standing behind his promise. Most politicians learned the wrong lesson from Bill Clinton’s gays-in-the-military battle in which he came into office and did what he said he would do in the campaign and was burned at the stake for it. He backtracked with “don’t ask don’t tell” but it at least changed the status quo, which is worth something even if it’s not everything. Since then, too many Democratic politicians have shied away from saying they would do anything concrete on social issues at all.
Spitzer seems to understand that you have to keep plugging away at these things from different directions in order to make progress, regardless of the liklihood of passage, and that it’s incumbent upon progressive politicians to use some of what Bush likes to call “political capital” to do it. It’s only by constantly coming back to first principles on social change again and again that people internalize that they have become mainstream. Good for Spitzer for keeping this on the agenda.
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