Saturday, June 25, 2011

Go, Gay Nephews!!! Go, Gay Brothers!! (And you girlfriends, you're great, too!)

So I'm reading this morning's NY Times article about the tight campaign (mostly orchestrated by Governor Cuomo, the Times says) that finally brought marriage equality to New York State, and I come across a sentence that makes me do a double-take.

Let me set the scene. Senator Kruger is a Democrat. When a bill came up two years ago, he voted against marriage equality. According to the article, marriage advocates saw him as a lost cause, figuring it was more likely they could turn enough Republicans than that they could get Kruger. But there was something marriage advocates didn't know about Kruger. He was getting blowback for the anti-gay vote in his own home:

The gay nephew of the woman he lives with, Dorothy Turano, was so furious at Mr. Kruger for opposing same-sex marriage two years ago that he had cut off contact with both of them, devastating Ms. Turano.

You mean Senator Kruger, who is living in sin, gets to veto whether other people get married? Yet he's realized the error of his ways because he needs to repair the relationship between his unmarried partner and her gay nephew!

OK. So I'm remembering reading that Governor Cuomo's wife has a gay brother or sister, and wife has been pushing Cuomo to get gay marriage legal already. To clear up my fuzzy memory I reread the article looking for that part and find I am mistaken:

The pressure did not let up at home. Mr. Cuomo’s girlfriend, Sandra Lee, has a gay brother, and she frequently reminded the governor how much she wanted the law to change.

It's not Governor Cuomo's wife who is pushing for equality but his girlfriend.

Let me paraphrase. Straight legislators were lobbied to support marriage equality by their unmarried partners who were concerned about their gay relatives inability to marry. Yay!

4 comments:

Jack Veasey said...

More proof that being open with the people in our lives and families isn't just healthy and comfortable -- it's good political strategy. Thanks for sharing this!

Glenn Ingersoll said...

True 'nuff.

Not possible to know from the tiny size of the sample, of course, but I wonder what influence the unmarriedness of the het couples had on their consideration of a change in the legal status quo.

Art Durkee said...

Rock on.

I think there's an anthemic pop song to be made out of this: Go, gay nephews and brothers!

:)

Glenn Ingersoll said...

Anthemic gay pop songs. We could do with more of those.