Today, New York State

Out of New York State, Governor Paterson is pressing the legislature to do something, despite their recent insanity of Senators hopping parties and causing a fair aneurysm for party leaders of both sides. The Senate chamber now stands at 31 Republican, 31 Democrats, after this past election swept in a Democratic majority (32-30) for the first time in something like 40 years.

But Paterson says that they are just causing problems and blocking the process of getting shit down and is demanding they do something before they recess. And today? The first thing they will be dealing with? Same-sex marriage, which already passed the House.

Looks like we may have a vote today, kids.

Just this week, Reuters announced a poll showing a majority of New Yorkers support same-sex marriage:

The poll found 51 percent of voters supported gay marriage versus 41 percent who opposed it, with 8 percent undecided.

The poll was released as a bill seeking to legalize gay marriage languishes in the State Senate due to a leadership battle between Democrats and Republicans.

New York's State Assembly passed the bill on May 12, and Governor David Paterson has vowed to sign it if it passes the Senate.

In May a Quinnipiac poll found voters split evenly at 46 percent, while in April 2004 voters opposed gay marriage by a 55 to 37 percent majority.

Perhaps we will have marriage equality in New York by the end of the week, maybe not. But we'll see. It's too bad that it's a desperate move on Paterson's behalf to make a name before himself after his pitifully low approval ratings oust him in the next round of elections.

In related news, check out these two nifty graphs from Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com evaluating LGBTQ rights (click on the images to go to the actual postings. The first one is general support for a wide variety of issues from 6/13/09:


The second is about the changing view of same-sex marriage by state -- ha! check out Utah at the very bottom -- from 6/11/09: