New York Senate one vote away from passing marriage equality.

[RandySF]

I just read on Facebook that another Republican senator has moved to our side. Marriage equality is now just one vote away in New York.

[RKP5637]

1. Wow!!! n/t

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

2. How long will it take before we get a vote on the floor?

[brooklynite]

3. Roy McDonald -Saratoga

Two undecided left; one likely to be a "no"

[HappyMe]

4. Sweet!

:woohoo:

[pnwmom]

5. I wonder if any of those anti-voters are closeted.

:shrug:

Like Carl Kruger, D, used to be -- before he got outed and changed his vote to support marriage equality.

http://www.salon.com/news/gay_marriage/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/06/14/kruger_outing

When, in 2008, the Democrats gained control of the New York Senate, a "Gang of Three" Dems threatened to switch parties, in part because they did not want a vote on gay marriage. In 2009, two of them engineered a leadership coup, with the support of two others. These four Democrats: Hiram Monserrate, a corrupt former cop who slashed his girlfriend's face with a broken glass; Pedro Espada, who famously didn't live in the Bronx district he represented and whose healthcare nonprofit was used to employ Espada's family and purchase $20,000 worth of sushi, delivered to his home (Espada actually voted yes on gay marriage after doing everything in his power to cause it to fail); Ruben Diaz Sr., a virulently anti-gay pol whose own family (including his lesbian granddaughter) is regularly appalled by his hatred; and Carl Kruger, who, by the standards of these assholes, is a pretty run-of-the-mill corrupt anti-gay Albany pol, except that he had a long-term secret gay partner.

Espada and Monserrate are now out of office. Diaz is still against gay marriage. But Kruger has switched his vote. And all that's changed is that his secret life was revealed to everyone in the New York Times.

While the FBI investigated Kruger for bribery, they learned that he lived with his longtime male partner while pretending (or at least allowing people to believe) that his partner's mother was his girlfriend.

I find this to be pretty compelling evidence that reporting on a politician's sexual orientation serves the public interest.

[TheWraith]

6. Kruger wasn't very deep in the closet. Kind of an unsurprising revelation.

I'm told that Dean Skelos, the Republican majority leader, is much farther in, buried well behind the boxes of winter wear.