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.

Leading the Way? California Loses It's Luster

Everyone’s got something to say about the California Supreme Court’s ruling that the voters of that state had the legal right to approve a measure actively limiting the rights of certain California citizens. A lot of the response is predictable and, depending where you stand on the issue of same-sex marriage, entirely defensible.

So we’ll leave it to the legal scholars to parse the technical merit of the not terribly surprising 185 page decision and we’ll leave it to the activists on both sides to make their arguments about the morality of allowing 18,000 gay couples to stay legally married while barring any additional couples from joining that now-exclusive club.

Instead let’s ask a different question: What does mean for everyone else?

California was once known as a pretty progressive place (insert tilted-country-fruits-and-nuts-rolled-to-Cali joke here) and is still known as a bellwether for many social and political trends. One of the most critical tipping points in 20th Century American politics came in California in 1978 when voters passed Proposition 13. This landmark law radically cut property taxes (by 57%) and subsequently caused deep and lasting cuts to the level and quality of many public services in the state. Services like schools that quickly went from first in the nation to worst in the nation. Whatever its intended effect Prop 13 unleashed a tidal wave of anti-tax sentiment across the country and helped reshape the politics of the next thirty years.

Ronald Reagan rode that wave into the White House. George Bush was carried out of office by that wave when he broke a no tax pledge. Democrats and Republicans alike were challenged to say “no” to taxes at every turn. Twenty-three years after Prop 13 George W. Bush continued to capitalize on the voter anger it induced by pushing through the largest, and most regressive tax cut in American history. Prop 13 changed American politics and it all started in California.

But what has the Golden State given us since? Precious little in the way of important change. Direct democracy as practiced in California has become government by proposition — wonderful in concept perhaps but disastrous in practice. Voters, persuaded by multimillion-dollar ad campaigns run by special interests, have driven the increasingly rickety jalopy off the cliff by approving nearly every tax cut and specially-directed spending increase that comes along.

California is totally broke and even the Terminator has not been able to fix it. The Governor and Legislature are returning to Sacramento for a third attempt at passing a budget this year after voters rejected the last deal involving painful service cuts and tax and fee hikes. Like spoiled children they keep demanding more of everything. While the rest of America seems to have learned from our decades-long binge on easy credit — we can have it all and not pay for it!! — Californians are stuck in the past. No longer does the state lead with fresh new ideas or bold political moves. Instead it molders like a rotting tomato fallen from the vine.

And so it is with same-sex marriage. First the court ruled San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom couldn’t just decide for himself to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Then the same court ruled the California Constitution demanded same-sex couples be allowed to marry. Now the same court has decided that voters can overrule the justices on a Constitutional issue such as this. Leading the way? Hardly.

While schizophrenic California has made same-sex marriage a soap opera, states like Vermont, Connecticut, Maine, and Iowa (Iowa for God’s sakes!) have had reasoned discussions and debates and recognized that marriage, as a matter of civil contract law, should not be limited to two people of opposite genders. And in the time Californians have hemmed and hawed and screamed and yelled American public opinion has dramatically shifted with opponents and supporters of same-sex marriage now roughly split. Apparently as goes Maine, so goes the nation.

The same-sex marriage “debate” in California has been the “Real Wives of Orange County” to Connecticut’s and Iowa’s CSPAN. One’s a car wreck that you can neither take your eyes off of nor take seriously while the other is a dry but inevitably substantive exercise.

So while California gears up for another season of “Gay Marriage Propositions” (not a bad title for a totally different show but that’s another story) other states will probably quietly add themselves to the small but growing list of places where gay marriage is the law of the land. New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York (if the State Senate can overcome the objections of a suspiciously hysterical homophobic minister) are the most likely candidates.

Indeed maybe California has, at least, served a function: By being so loud and distracting it has allowed other states to judge the issue on its merits and find that equal rights really does mean “equal”. Not “equal other than the the use of the word ‘marriage’.”

Florida's (Allegedly) Gay Gov

So Florida Governor Charlie Crist is going to run for Senate. That should be good news for the GOP since the seat he’s running for is being vacated by another Republican (the hapless Mel Martinez) and Crist is very popular in the Sunshine State. The announcement, expected Tuesday, has gotten plenty of coverage but almost all of it avoided the (pink) elephant in the room: Crist is gay gay gay.

The rumors and reports have been well documented for years but a new documentary out this month called “Outrage” outs closeted public officials who the filmmaker believes have had anti-gay voting records. In the film we hear from men who say they had sex with Crist and the others. In reviewing the movie newspapers across the country named names. Including Crist.

Now what? Will Crist’s very conservative Republican primary opponent try and make it an issue? Will Crist finally drop the beard and come out? Can a gay Republican win? What will be his position on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and same-sex marriage? What about DOMA?

This should be very interesting.

Catholic Hypocrisy

Next up the countdown to the Notre Dame nightmare (pro-choice Obama speaking at graduation this coming weekend) is on with tons of opinions but nary a mention of the essential hypocrisy that Get Real pointed out two weeks ago when I argued that critics are correct — and totally hypocritical (I’ll just quote myself here and save time):

The Catholic Church has a very strong position about the “culture of life” and has indicated in no uncertain terms that the Church and it’s ancillary parts (of which Notre Dame certainly seems to be) should not honor opponents of that position.

But the “culture of life” is not only a code phrase for abortion or embryonic stem cell research or even assisted suicide. The Catholic Church also opposes the death penalty. Indeed the Conference of Catholic Bishops has a whole campaign to battle capital punishment. So why is no one talking about the honorary degree Notre Dame is handing out to the Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court?

Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard has repeatedly upheld the use of capital punishment in Indiana during his 29 years on the bench including a case in 2005 in which he wrote the majority opinion that a mentally ill man could be put to death despite a state law that prohibited executing the mentally “retarded.”

So where’s the outrage? Death-penalty-advocate Justice Shepard should no more be honored by a Catholic University than should abortion-rights-proponent Barack Obama. Hypocrisy should have no place in this debate. Principals are principals. No?

I ask again — why isn’t anyone writing about this? It’s always easier to set “for” and “against” guests up against one another and let them argue but shouldn’t this be part of that debate?

Douthat, Not It

Finally the latest attempt by the New York Times to find a rational, intelligent, thoughtful conservative to co-man its Op-Ed page with the stellar David Brooks is proving to be only slightly more successful than the last (Bill Kristol who has become as much of an embarrassment to conservatism as did George W. Bush). Wunderkind he’s-in-his-twenties-so-he-must-be-relevant Ross Douthat pens a column in Tuesday’s papers that is half true and logically hollow.

Douthat argues that same-sex marriage will eventually happen because partisans who fight for a freedom eventually win. He then shifts gears to say that, using this same paradigm, abortion opponents may also someday, eventually, be victorious.

The pro-life movement is arguably more comfortable with the language of rights and liberties than its opponents. Abortion foes are defending a right to life grounded in the Declaration of Independence, after all, whereas pro-choicers are defending more nebulous rights (privacy, autonomy, etc.) supposedly grounded in “penumbras” and “emanations” from the Constitution.

Huh? Aren’t pro-choicers defending the rights and liberties of pregnant women? Anyway that logical lapse isn’t the worst thing about his column….

This helps explain why Americans under 35, while more sympathetic to gay marriage than their parents, also tend to be slightly more anti-abortion. The Obama era may be pushing the country leftward on some fronts, but recent polling suggests that America’s slim pro-choice majority is even slimmer than usual these days.

Neat if it were true. But oops! It’s not. Douthat links to an article from 2003 noting how some young people were — at that time — less unequivocally pro-choice than their parents, speculating that having grown up in a world where abortion was available, these kids didn’t know what was at risk. And then he sites a recent Pew Poll that does show the “pro-choice majority” to be slimmer than in some previous polls.

But if Ross has learned nothing in his 29 years on Planet Earth he should have picked up this before the Times bestowed upon him a coveted columnist gig: One poll don’t prove nothin’.

As Get Real pointed out May 7, abortion rights are not less popular now than they have been at other times since Roe v. Wade (here I go quoting myself again):

In poll after poll the abortion issue has changed very little since Roe v. Wade made it legal. For instance when Gallup asked about abortion in 1975, the results were not much different from when the pollsters asked the same questions in 1980 (when Reagan was elected), 1990 (when Bush was President), 2000 (when Clinton was ending his term), and 2008.

                    Always Legal             Sometimes Legal          Never Legal

1975                     21                                 54                             22
1980                     25                                 53                             18
1990                     31                                 53                             12
2000                     28                                 51                             19
2008                     28                                 54                             17

Source: Gallup Poll

Damn those pesky facts!

Whether you agree with Times’ columnists or not you should at least expect a reasoning logical argument. This is just sloppy pablum. It cannot be that hard to find a conservative with a brain. Sometimes I wonder if the Times chooses these doofuses on purpose — to make their liberal writers shine in contrast.

So, Brooks! It’s up to you. School this kid.

Gay Marriage in Springfield (Twentieth Century Fox)

It’s really hard to see the political logic in Governor David Paterson’s unveiling of a same-sex marriage bill for New York on Thursday. But maybe that’s the beauty of it. Honestly, Paterson has no where to go but up.

Paterson’s poll numbers are in the toilet. His handling of the Kennedy-Gillibrand-Clinton thing was a fiasco. He had his lunch handed to him on the budget. He can’t get a handful of gangster Senators from his own party to grow up and back a plan to rescue the MTA (and their own constituents). Oh, and now he thinks is the time for a gay marriage bill.

The barriers to New York legalizing same-sex marriage have been dropping for a couple of years. First Eliot Spitzer campaigned on passing a bill. Then Republicans in the Senate who had blocked any vote on a marriage bill passed in the Assembly lost control of the upper chamber. But a funny thing happened on the way to Democratic control of the levers of power in Albany: Ruben Diaz Sr.

Senator Diaz has had a suspiciously singular obsession with gays and gay marriage for much of his political career (which began in 2001 with his election to the New York City Council). Diaz was one of the “gang of four” who held up how the Senate would be led after November’s election in order to each obtain their own personal objectives. For Diaz that was a promise not to allow a vote on same-sex marriage.

Since Democrats have only the barest of majorities in the Senate (32-30) every vote they lose from one of their own has to be replaced with a Republican vote. So far four Democratic Senators have said they will vote ‘no’ on gay marriage. What are the odds of finding four Republican Senators to vote for gay marriage? That’s almost a rhetorical question.

It doesn’t help that the new Archbishop Timothy Dolan made opposition to gay marriage one of his signature issues when introduced to New York Catholics (and the rest of us) on Wednesday. That will make it even tougher for Catholic Senators.

Of course there’s a legitimate (and unanswered) question as to what religion should have to do with this. Same-sex marriage laws in Vermont, Iowa, Connecticut, and Massachusetts deal with civil marriages. None of those state’s laws require churches for perform same-sex marriages (nor could they according to that musty old document known as the US Constitution). Indeed the Paterson bill specifically notes churches do not have to perform same-sex marriages unless they choose to. Churches and pastors and archbishops act as though what they believe ought to be codified in civil law that applies to people of other faiths.

Isn’t that what we all think is wrong with the way the Taliban runs the areas it controls in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Last time we checked America was not a theocracy. For centuries some church people complained that marriage between two people of different races was “against God’s will” and until anti-miscegenation laws were ruled unconstitutional in 1967 a majority of states would not allow two people of different races to marry. The very next year in a national Gallup poll 72% of Americans said, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, they didn’t think two people of different races should be allowed to marry. When Gallup asked the same question in 2007 and one in seven Americans still say people of different races should not marry.

Paterson alluded to this history in his announcement and he did manage to bring together a pretty impressive bunch for his news conference including Mayor Bloomberg and a host of Federal and state electeds. The issue has also gained the support of both Senators Schumer and Gillibrand. (In fact Gillibrand, not to be outdone in the “fastest political rebranding on record” department issued this statement: “New York and the nation are ready to start a new chapter. The time has come for full marriage equality.  I commend the Governor for his leadership on this important issue. If Iowa can do it, so can we.”)

Privately many advocates in the same-sex marriage trenches are worried, however, that the momentum from their recent hard-won victories in Vermont and Iowa will be threatened if New York’s legislature fails to pass a marriage bill. They have been careful to pick their battles and were stung by their defeat in nominally gay-friendly California on the Proposition 8 battle in November. A loss in nominally-gay friendly New York would be an undeniable setback.

So what is Paterson thinking? Perhaps he really believes it can pass. Or perhaps he understands that by pushing this hot button issue to the top of the Albany agenda he can accomplish three things: Redirect the public’s attention to his leadership; Force opponents to say the ugly and stupid things they will inevitably say; and thereby get a Civil Unions bill passed instead of full gay marriage. The end game in that might be to hope that a court challenge similar to the one in New Jersey (the state’s court ruled civil unions weren’t enough) would eventually result in legal same-sex marriage in New York.

In the meantime, maybe fewer people will be talking about Andrew Cuomo….

Once Upon a Time in Boston (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

Ten years ago when I was doing a story on same-sex marriage, an advocate for gay rights said legal gay marriage would take time but would eventually become commonplace in America. It’s beginning to look like he was right and if prior highly-charged civil rights struggles are any indication it’s happening very quickly by historical standards.

Amidst the arguments for and against the central battle comes down to whether America is a country where the majority rules. The Founding Fathers certainly did everything they could to prevent that from happening with their rules to limit public participation in the sausage-making of government but there has always been a strong appeal to the notion that our laws ought to reflect public sentiment — even when public sentiment is off-the-tracks.

Which brings us to the case of courts conveying the right to marry upon same-sex couples and the countervailing push to have the public overrule or preempt the judges. Last November it worked in California. It did not work in Arizona. Now Iowa and Vermont have joined the club and present major difficulties for the anti-marriage forces. Iowa makes amending it’s constitution difficult and time-consuming. The earliest the Iowa court could be overruled would be 2012 and Massachusetts showed what can happen when people see gay couples getting married and the bedrock of civilization not crumbling.

Vermont is even tougher since, for the first time, the Legislature voted for same-sex marriage while overturning the governor’s veto. That’s an uphill battle, even for well-funded Mormons.

Both sides should look back to the century-long fight over interracial marriage for a lesson in how far public opinion can lag behind what courts deem fundamentally right — and how those strong feelings dissipate.

Hint: When people argue such-and-such will happen over “my dead body” they are right. It does happen as older voters with older notions of right and wrong die off.

Watch the video for more.

Gay Marriage Tipping Point from Jay DeDapper on Vimeo.

Gay Marriage Ruling on Tap (Twentieth Century Fox)

It will happen in the next 90 days. A decision that may reignite a culture war that could consume the Obama Administration’s best-laid plans on health care and the economy. Or not.

Thursday California’s Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the proposal that it overturn Proposition 8 — the initiative voters approved in November that overturned the Court’s prior ruling making same-sex marriage legal. Prop 8 passed with the help of a massive infusion of people and cash from the Mormon Church along with Christian and conservative groups after more than 18-thousand gay and lesbian couples had legally married.

While the justices appear likely to allow Prop 8 to stand they appear equally likely to allow those married gay couples to stay married. Whatever the eventual decision it will be seen as fundamentally un-American and unfair by a pretty large chunk of people.

Especially among those who are ambivalent about same-sex marriage the idea that the Supreme Court would overrule the will of the people as expressed by their votes for Prop 8 is likely to be very troubling. Opponents of court rulings (mainly conservatives but liberals at times as well) have gotten a fair amount of traction from demonizing the courts as “imperial” and “undemocratic.”

Likewise — especially with those who are ambivalent about same-sex marriage — the idea that same-sex marriage is now illegal but the 18-thousand couples who tied the knot before November get a free pass is inherently unfair and wrong. Think about it: If gay marriage is so bad that it should be illegal, why then is it okay for a select group who got in under the wire?

At the end of the day what this will provide is fuel for Republicans and conservatives to fan the flames of latent homophobia and use it to distract and challenge Obama. While it’s true Obama said he opposed same-sex marriage AND opposed Prop 8 (cognitive dissonance alert!) nothing reshapes the debate in Washington faster than a culture war.

You can see the salivating anchors on Fox and MSNBC now, fulminating as over-the-top graphics slide by, stoking the food fight between guests chosen for their ability to make good TV, if not necessarily any sense. And of course no one will be challenged on any FACTS. But I digress.

The reason this has so much potential is the economy, stupid. There’s plenty of history of scapegoating minority groups during tough economic times — the whole divide and conquer thing. Fan the flames of some envy and hatred enough and Obama’s highly ambitious and contentious proposals on really important things will be starved for oxygen. Especially if his most ardent supporters are pushing back from the other direction, insisting that Obama take their side if the court rules against them. Either way Obama will be forced to wade into waters he wants to avoid entirely.

Of course there is another scenario — and one that would say a lot about how much politics and culture in America really as changed. If the California court’s ruling blows over with just a minor flurry of chatter it will be because a majority of the voting public no longer buys into the fear and gay rights advocates recognize they have lost a battle in a war they are winning.

Polls have shown a steady progression of tolerance for gays and lesbians over the decades and younger voters in particular are completely nonplussed by the subject. Even a majority of self-described evangelicals under 30 now support same-sex marriage or civil union. Advocates have good reason for believing that civil unions will and same-sex marriage will eventually become commonplace.

But until then we watch and wait for a court in California and the reaction that follows.