Smith says NY Senate lacks gay marriage votes

ALBANY, N.Y. – New York Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith said Saturday that his Democratic conference lacks enough votes to legalize gay marriage this year, but he’s committed to passing a gay marriage bill soon.

Smith said in remarks prepared for a Human Rights Campaign event in Manhattan that he strongly supports equal marital rights for gay couples.

“Although we don’t have the number of votes at this time needed to pass the marriage equality and gender bill this legislative session, we are committed to pursuing its passage when we have the votes,” said Smith, of Queens.

But his confirmation that he lacks enough votes is likely a disappointment for gay rights advocates, who had hoped gay marriage would pass after Democrats took control of the Senate in the November elections. See Smith says NY Senate lacks gay marriage votes
Newsday, NY

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Gays, lesbians hopeful despite inaugural pastor

Hope – and the idea that the country’s new leader would break down barriers of discrimination – overshadowed the disappointment many gays and lesbians felt when an outspoken critic of same-sex marriage gave the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration Tuesday.

“I am completely hopeful, optimistic, relieved, enthusiastic – even knowing that he’s going to disappoint,” said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Obama’s decision to have the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer dampened Kendell’s expectations “of how culturally competent Obama is on gay and lesbian issues,” she said. “I think it’s a reminder of how much work we have to do.”

Warren, Evangelical pastor of the Saddleback Church in Orange County, was a chief proponent of Proposition 8, the California ballot measure approved last year that bars gays and lesbians from marrying.

He also has equated same-sex marriage to incest, polygamy and pedophilia and has said that gays and lesbians should resist the urge to act on their sexuality. Warren made no such references during the globally broadcast invocation.

Instead, he spoke of the need to pursue commitment to “justice for all” and “civility in our actions, even when we differ.”

Gays, lesbians hopeful despite inaugural pastor

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Gay Former Clinton Aide Lashes Out at Obama Over Warren

It’s becoming clear that while the gay rights movement’s leaders are thrilled with Obama’s invitation to Gene Robinson to join inauguration festivities, lots of its rank and file are still deeply distressed over Rick Warren giving the invocation on Inauguration Day. As a reporter, it’s often tricky figuring out if a movement’s—any movement, from the Christian right to the antiwar left—spokespeople are truly representing whom they claim to speak for.

Without polls, it’s really impossible to know.

But I’m getting more and more angry comments and E-mails from members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community furious with their nominal leaders. This E-mail from a former Clinton White House aide who requested anonymity captures the lingering anger over Warren:

. . . [T]he problem here goes well beyond Warren’s incendiary language equating gay marriage with incest. He is what he is. The greater problem lies in the President-Elect’s cruel calculation that this insult and offense to gay America is acceptable collateral damage for whatever plus he sees in the suck-up to Warren, giving profile and platform to this mega-merchant of discrimination in the first program agenda item during the first official act of his first day in office. I was one of the 12 first-ever openly gay White House staff members to take up work the day following President Clinton’s inauguration. His respect for gay Americans was evident even when setbacks and disappointments slowed the change agenda, and he certainly did not deliberately nor unnecessarily scheme to sell out gay Americans on his first day in office to score points with opponents. Ordinary gay Americans will need to hold this new Administration to the tenets of its campaign and to the idealism of its Inaugural language — and to a fundamental expectation for respect. The Warren invitation remains a disgrace and a blemish on day one of the new Administration. Shame on Obama.

For a lot of LGBT folks, the heartburn over Warren will linger awhile. But what if Obama delivers on a major LGBT political goal in his first term, something like ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” like the president-elect’s spokesman recently promised? It’s hard to imagine the current gay ambivalence over Obama outlasting such a huge advance for the LGBT cause. The reality of policy would quickly overwhelm symbolic concerns.

See Gay Former Clinton Aide Lashes Out at Obama Over Warren
U.S. News & World Report, DC

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WATCH: Melissa Etheridge Takes On Elisabeth Hasselbeck Over Prop 8

Melissa Etheridge stopped by “The View” Tuesday, but before singing a Christmas song she challenged co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck about Prop 8.

Etheridge married partner Tammy Lynn Michaels, which whom she has twin two-year olds, in 2003.

“To have people vote to take away rights is very un-American,” Etheridge told the cohosts talking about her disappointment over Prop 8.

She then singled out Elisabeth for a previous show’s discussion on the issue when she cited a Swedish priest. “I was saddened with your conversation only because I felt you misleaded people when you started to talk about a Swedish priest who was put in jail…”

Elisabeth got defensive and backed away. “We’re not in California. I didn’t vote on Prop 8. I wasn’t there…”

WATCH: Melissa Etheridge Takes On Elisabeth Hasselbeck Over Prop 8