The current legislative session ends in Albany on June 20. Gov. Cuomo's been saying he wants another vote on marriage equality in this session, and Mayor Bloomberg, Council Speaker Quinn, Ken Mehlmann and many others have been lobbying our state's undecided Senators to join their counter-parts in the state assembly to pass marriage equality legislation in this session, reversing 2009's disappointing result.
The whip count currently has the "no's" still outnumbering the "yes's" but there are enough publicly undecided members to swing the vote in our favor.
After the squiggle, a few action links and a whole bunch of videos...
Others (Clarknt67, jpmassar, etc) are better than I am at putting together a rousing call-to-action diary, so I'm just going to say that my "partner" of 20 years and I would appreciate any support you might be able to offer (when I was recently being transferred from Lutheran Medical Center to Mt. Sinai after a cardiac incident, the paramedic, in clarifying my "partner's" answer to the question "your relationship to the patient?" asked "co-worker?" Wouldn't have happened if "husband" had been a legal option).
That said, here are some links followed by the promised videos...all of which come from HRC's partnership in New Yorkers for Marriage Equality:
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OK...on to the videos. A big part of the push has been their distribution of videos of "everyday" New Yorkers in support of full marriage equality. I'm going to end with a run-down of all of them (as of today...more coming). I'm asking you to be like your pain-in-the-butt loony wing-nut cousin who spams you all of that "Obama is a Secret Manchurian Monkey" crap and pick one to share with your entire e-mail distribution list. Or better yet, put some effort into it and send Fran Drescher to your loony Aunt Sassy; send Michael Strahan to your couch potato Uncle Butch; send Kevin Bacon to anyone you're less than six degrees separated from! Let's get these things as widely circulated as possible this week (think of it as increasing the likelihood that someone will see pro-equality advertising that would otherwise have to be paid for). Here we go, starting with the most recent and working backwards:
Michael Strahan and Nicole Murphy:
Ben & Jerry:
Broadway Stars:
Firefighter Mike Vissichelli:
The Normal Heart Cast:
Everyday New Yorkers:
Vanessa Williams:
Tom DiNapoli:
Steve Nash:
Claire Buffie (Miss New York):
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Anna Wintour:
Larry King:
Sean Avery:
Juliana Margulies and Keith Lieberthal:
Bill T. Jones:
Sam Waterston:
Chris Meloni:
Tom Colicchio:
Mario Batali:
David Chang:
Lucy Liu:
Bill Bratton and Rikki Klieman:
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand:
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Senator Chuck Schumer:
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Fabulous Beekman Boys:
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Dave Dinkins:
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Ed Koch:
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Ethan and Ryan Hawke:
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Russell Simmons:
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Mark and Sunrise Ruffalo:
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John Slattery:
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Joan Rivers:
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Barbara Bush:
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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
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Whoopi Goldberg:
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Daphne Rubin-Vega:
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Kenneth Cole:
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Fran Drescher:
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Mayor Bloomberg:
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Moby:
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Julianne Moore:
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Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe:
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Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon:
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