St. Sen. Hiram Monserrate (photo: Ellis Kaplan)

If you want some advice about marriage — same-sex or otherwise — I can’t think of anyone better to ask than convicted girlfriend-batterer, ex-cop, and current New York State Senator Hiram Monserrate. Monserrate was one of eight Democrats in the state’s “upper” chamber who voted against allowing people of the same gender to marry yesterday.

(Irony alert! Four of the eight ‘no’ votes came from members who represent Queens — but apparently not queens.)

Although I’m sure he had very good reasons for his decision (the word in Albany and his Elmhurst district is he’s hoping to beat back a primary opponent by appealing to religious voters!) Monserrate is pretty much the poster boy for everything that is wrong in Albany and he proved it yet again with his vote.

You may recall a grand jury charged Monserrate with three felonies and three misdemeanors in the caught-on-tape beating/slashing of his girlfriend Karla Giraldo. Giraldo was seen on surveillance tape clinging to the doorway of Monserrate’s home screaming while the Senator shoved her outside. At first Giraldo made statements that lead prosecutors to believe Monserrate had slashed her in the face with a broken drinking glass. Later she changed her tune.

Nonetheless the Senator was convicted of misdemeanor assault and will someday, maybe, be the subject of a “disciplinary” hearing in the Senate. And Friday he will be sentenced for his crime.

So now this “family values” Democrat wants to gin up support among the Pentecostal crowd out on Roosevelt Avenue by voting against same-sex marriage? Perfect.

The arguments for and against marriage equality are well known and honest people can disagree about whether it’s fair to deny two people civil, legal but non-religious marital status solely because of their gender. It would be interesting to hear Queens Senator Shirley Huntley’s take. The 71-year-old African-American Senator certainly remembers anti-miscegenation laws that denied civil, legal marriage to two people based solely on the color of their skin. She was another of the 8 Dems who voted ‘no.’ Unfortunately she chose not to explain.

In fact just one of the 38 Senators who voted against same-sex marriage explained his vote. St. Sen. (and minister) Ruben Diaz has had a bee in his bonnet about gay everything since as far back as I can remember. I’ll never forget the news conference in the South Bronx a bunch of reporters attended one winter day a decade back in which the speakers were there to talk about some environmental racism they thought was going on in the neighborhood. One by one they decried how the area was bearing far more than its share of pollution. Then Diaz came to the mic and went on a bender about gays. Huh?

In 1994 when he was on the Civilian Complaint Review Board he said bringing the Gay Games to New York would only increase the number of people with AIDS. A few years later he was the driving force in trying to close the Harvey Milk High School (designed to give gay kids a safe space to go to school) by claiming it was “heterosexual discrimination.” At least he’s consistent. But one has to wonder why he has for so many years been fixated on gay things. Freud would have a field day.

And here’s where the story comes full circle. Diaz told the Post recently that he will be officiating the marriage of Hiram Monserrate and Karla Giraldo. After the restraining order that is keeping the Senator away from his punching-bag fiance-to-be is lifted.

Oh, so that’s the traditional marriage the Senate is protecting! God bless them.