Local politicians talk gay marriage

The national movement for marriage equality gained local momentum Thursday night when politicians and professors came together at Teachers College's Milbank Chapel to reignite this personal and political struggle.

State Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, a Democrat who represents Morningside Heights, and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn joined Columbia political scientist Jeffrey Lax and lawyer Susan Sommer in front of an audience of nearly 100 listeners to explore the nationwide shifts in public opinion regarding same-sex marriage rights, the string of defeats its advocates have faced in the State Senate, and their collective disappointment over President Barack Obama, CC ’83.

“Politicians are weak people,” said O’Donnell, the first openly gay man to serve in the State Assembly and a lead sponsor of same-sex marriage bills that passed the chamber in 2007 and 2009. “They live in fear of losing their seat. No state legislator in the country has ever lost his seat after voting for marriage equality, ever.”

O’Donnell, whose district encompasses the Columbia campus, appeared to echo the frustration of many in the audience when he criticized the State Senate—which flipped Democratic in 2008 for the first time in decades—for “not functioning.”

Quinn, the first female and first openly gay speaker of the New York City Council, acknowledged the improvements in LGBT rights and acceptance, but ultimately lamented the lack of substantial political progress.

According to Quinn, a Democrat who represents much of lower Manhattan, individuals can make a difference by contacting their elected representatives and demanding change. She said she will join a major march on Washington, D.C. next month to protest the White House’s support of the Defense of Marriage Act and the reluctance to revoke the military’s policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

O’Donnell said that channeling grassroots energy could pay major dividends. “Manhattan’s state senators [including Bill Perkins, a Democrat who represents West Harlem] are fine,” he told Spectator after the event. “But everyone can put pressure on the legislators outside the city. Politicians do listen to their constituents.”

Lax, an associate political science professor, spoke during the event of the changing dynamics in public opinion nationwide. He presented several charts indicating that young people are much more receptive to gay rights than their elders, adding that politicians usually follow poll numbers when deciding where to stand on same-sex marriage.

Lax also asserted that states or communities with conservative cultural values nearly always “get what they want” on issues affecting gays, so that liberals need to amass large electoral majorities before their representatives heed their wishes. He expects that New York will eventually permit same-sex marriage, if not in the current election cycle then perhaps before 2012.

Lax, who co-wrote a report with Columbia political science professor Justin Phillips this summer titled “Gay rights in the States: Public Opinion and Policy Responsiveness,” to be published in the American Political Science Review, ultimately expressed a dose of optimism. “What’s happened so far is a minor setback, but the delay will not be infinite,” he said.
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