Christine Quinn, the openly lesbian speaker of the City Council, made a heartfelt plea yesterday to state lawmakers to legalize same-sex marriage — admitting the possibility has her dreaming of “where the wedding might be.”
“You start picking up cheesy bridal magazines,” Quinn said the day before the Senate may consider a legalization bill.
“Now the worst thing in the world is to have your hopes beaten down — worse than having no hope is having hope unfulfilled. So [today] is really about having hope come to fruition.”
“If the bill is not voted on and passed [today], a week after a referendum passed in Maine that took rights away from the residents, if seven days after that, the New York state Senate stands up and says, ‘All New York families are equal,’ what a message that sends about what we believe as a state.”
The legislation may be put on the agenda of the special legislative session today, along with Gov. Paterson’s spending cuts.
Quinn has said she and her longtime partner, Kim Catullo, do not want to marry out of state because New York is their home.
She spoke yesterday about her and other gay New Yorkers’ hopes that Paterson had put the gay-marriage bill on the agenda.
Senate Democrats are split on whether the gay-marriage bill should be voted on, and it is unlikely to have the votes to pass today, but Paterson and other advocates are encouraging an up-or-down vote regardless.
Paterson is expected to sign the bill if it passes. The Assembly passed gay-marriage legislation in May.