Two thousand march for same-sex marriage in NYC
In New York City, some two thousand same-sex marriage advocates marched and rallied in Greenwich Village under hovering NYPD helicopters and drizzly skies. They chanted, “Gay, straight, black, white, marriage is a civil right.”
Anger at the California Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the Prop 8 ban on gay marriage was on many people’s lips — and protest signs. But the New York legislature’s upcoming rendezvous with its own same-sex marriage bill wasn’t far from anybody’s mind — including protest organizer and former OutQ host Corey Johnson.
Johnson: “We’re organizing here today and meeting here today to stand in solidarity with California, but also to put the spotlight on the legislature here. The state senate has three and a half weeks before the session ends and we’re calling on state senators to do the right thing and cast a vote for the marriage equality bill like the assembly did last week.”
At the rally in Union Square, protesters heard from openly gay New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Quinn said her disappointment at the ruling in California has just made her redouble her lobbying and other efforts to get marriage equality passed in New York.
The fate of the New York marriage bill now rests in the narrowly divided state senate, largely in the hands of a few wavering Republicans.
–Tim Curran, New York
