Poll shows 53% in N.Y. backing gay marriage
Majority with ‘few votes to spare’ seen in Senate
ALBANY — Proponents of legalizing gay marriage in New York State were bolstered in their recently stepped-up lobbying campaign by results of a poll Monday showing that a majority of voters would support same-sex marriage rights.
By a margin of 53 percent to 39 percent, respondents to the Siena College poll believe the Senate should pass marriage-equality legislation introduced last week by Gov. David A. Paterson. Eight percent were unsure or had no opinion.
“Knowing what I know today, I believe this governor will be able to sign a marriage- equality bill into law this summer,” said Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, the main gay rights lobby organization in New York.
“We’ll have a majority with a few votes to spare,” predicted State State Sen. Thomas K. Duane, an openly gay Democrat from Manhattan.
The Assembly already has gone on record backing gay marriage rights.
Expansion of the marriage laws will live or die in the Senate before lawmakers end their session in the next couple of months. Several Democrats oppose the measure — including Sen. William T. Stachowski of Lake View — and with their party in control of the Senate by a margin of only 32-30, it is certain that the bill will not pass without some Republican support.
Those who cross party lines can write off future support from the Conservative Party, warned the head of the small but influential political group.
“This is a line-in-the-sand issue for me,” party Chairman Michael R. Long said Monday.
Long, who questioned the accuracy of the Siena poll’s findings, said the legislation is about “destroying the sanctity of marriage.” He said that it also would lead to higher costs for employers who will have to expand pension and insurance benefits for gay workers who marry.
The state’s Catholic bishops also have made it a high priority to stop the bill.
“We believe that marriage can only be between a man and a woman and the state would be making a fundamental error to change that,” said Dennis Poust, a spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference.
The Siena poll found support for gay marriage rights among Democrats, women, Catholics and Jews, as well as residents of New York City, the downstate suburbs and, by a margin of 50 percent to 40 percent, those living upstate. It was backed most heavily by independents and those ages 18 to 34, a subgroup that favored the right by a 71-20 percent margin.
Those most likely to oppose the gay marriage bill were males, blacks, Protestants and those older than 55. Republicans, by 59 percent to 31 percent, were most opposed, the poll found.
Opponents believe that advocates of same-sex marriage will need to get at least four Republican senators to back the bill. “Even if we did know, we wouldn’t say,” Duane said of Senate Republicans who might cross party lines.
Senate Republicans say the issue, unlike the budget, is highly personal and will be up to rank-and-file lawmakers to decide on their own.
“I believe in traditional marriage,” said Sen. George D. Maziarz, R-Newfane.
But there are more liberal-leaning districts than the one Maziarz represents. “I probably will be making a public statement somewhere in the near future,” said Sen. James S. Alesi, a Monroe County Republican who represents part of Rochester. Insiders say he is one potential vote for the bill.
The issue is already working its way into the developing gubernatorial campaign for 2010. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in town to meet with Senate Republicans and to attend a couple of Republican fundraisers, said that he opposes the measure and that it could be used against Democratic candidates next year.
The Siena College Polling Institute survey comes as Senate Democratic leaders are trying to determine how and when to move forward on a push over the last week by Paterson to legalize gay marriage; Paterson is pushing for a rare up-or-down vote in which the outcome is not necessarily known before the measure comes to the floor.
The poll of 682 registered voters taken over three days last week has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. It follows a Quinnipiac University poll two weeks ago showing that 41 percent backed same-sex marriage, with a third saying civil unions — but not gay marriage — would be acceptable, and 19 percent saying legal recognition for gay couples should not be permitted.
“By a fairly significant margin, voters would like to see New York join with Vermont, Massachusetts, Iowa and other states in allowing same-sex couples to marry here,” Siena poll spokesman Steven Greenberg said. “It says there is certainly no political downside for the Senate passing the bill.”
Paterson said Monday that he did not advance the new gay marriage bill because of polling.
“We put the bill out because there are 1,324 protections that people who are married receive legally, like the ability to make medical decisions for one’s spouse, that you can’t if you’re not married,” he said. “Obviously, New Yorkers do see, at this point, no reason to prevent people from entering into that kind of contract as long as everyone else is able to. So we see it as an equality issue.”
Backers say opposition has been weakening to gay marriage in New York, a contention that even some GOP lawmakers privately acknowledge.
“You can vote against the bottle bill or tax laws and go back and look family members in the eye at Sunday dinner, but you can’t vote against your niece or nephew or your own child and expect to look them in the eye at Sunday dinners,” Van Capelle of the Empire State Pride Agenda said of the choice facing some lawmakers. “This is a very personal issue for a lot of people.”
Van Capelle said that his group has long relied on backing from some Senate Republicans for expansion of gay rights and that it expects the same to be true on gay marriage. He said he has had many conversations with Senate Republicans in the last week.
“I have had some of the most thoughtful, genuine personal dialogues with senators that I have had in a decade of spending time in Albany,” Van Capelle said. In the end, he said, he believes that New York will approve gay marriage during this legislative session to end what he called a “stain on our reputation as having been a leader on civil rights issues.”
But critics believe that Paterson is raising the issue now as a way to lessen attention from the state’s fiscal troubles and to score points with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
The Siena poll also found that Paterson’s standing among New Yorkers is continuing to slide. Sixty-three percent now view him unfavorably.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments