The New York Observer, February 4th, 2005
A State Supreme Court Justice ruled today that the City Clerk is obliged to marry same-sex couples.
This will no doubt be in the courts for a while. In the meantime, we wonder whether this will force Mike to take a clearer position on gay marriage. As we recall, his current stance is that he's against marriage, period. He won't get married, and he won't perform marriages. This always struck us as a little flip -- the point is that he has the choice.
But he does make one exception: He'll preside at the weddings of former mayors. We asked him to follow this thread out once at a press conference: Dinkins is married, Mike said. Rudy and Judy, whose marriage he performed, seem happy. Then he came to Koch, and kind of changed the subject.
Meanwhile, we wonder who's less happy about this ruling, Republicans who oppose it or Democrats who blame the gays for their election woes. So we may be alone in being glad that this issue has reemerged, though we wish the legislature had the guts to hold a debate and vote on it, rather than defaulting to the courts.
UPDATE: You've got to love the mayor's timing. Today, gay marriage.
And tomorrow night at 7:00, you can catch Mike at the Waldorf with Queer Eye star Carson Kressley. It's an event for Human Rights Campaign, the leading national gay lobbying group.
Bloomberg speaks at 7:45, and we assume that by then he'll have figured out what to say.
