....April 16, 3:58 PM
 
 
 
Same Sex Marriage: Can The Governor Figure Out Which Way Is Up?

By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

Isn’t it about time for New York to provide equality for all?

Governor David Paterson said last week that he plans to re-introduce legislation to make same-sex marriages legal in New York State.

Such a bill was introduced two years ago by then-Governor Eliot Spitzer, the man who hand-picked Paterson and then set him adrift in deep water by arrogance and misdeeds.

“We’ll put a bill out and let the people decide one way or the other,” Paterson said on radio last week.

While the bold step may fulfill a personal and campaign commitment, there is little evidence to believe that the Governor has either the juice or ability to steer the bill through the legislature and that his description of just “put a bill out” is indicative of a series of political failures that have marked his accidental gubernatorial term.

While the Assembly has previously passed such a bill and can be expected to do so again, the Governor, former Senate Minority Leader, will need more than hope to enable the bill to work its way through his former house.

The question of whether the State Senate would consider such a bill goes back to Southeast Queens Majority Leader Malcolm Smith’s battle to lead the body.

As you may recall, the needed Democratic votes to secure Smith as the Senate Leader were being held hostage by a group called the “gang of three” – briefly the “gang of four.” Although greater power for the Latino members of the delegation was the outward cry of the group, each of the three had their own agenda.

Bronx State Senator Rueben Diaz, an ordained Minister, demanded that Smith pledge that the same-sex marriage issue not be voted upon in the Senate. At one point in the clouded negotiations between Smith and the gang of three, it appeared that Smith had caved in to just about all of the “gang’s” demands. But the Democratic caucus objected to Smith’s deal which was ultimately modified. Final promises to Diaz by Smith were never publically clarified – at least not to the satisfaction of this writer.

One thing does remain clear: Diaz is voting “no” should a same-sex marriage bill come to the Senate floor. Therefore, even if every other member of the Dem caucus supports it – an unknown at this moment – one Republican vote, at a minimum would be needed to pass the legislation. Neither the Governor, nor Smith have demonstrated the ability to break the united Republican voting block.

Perhaps the theatrics of having a vote would satisfy this Governor, but we have no reason to believe that the Governor, Smith or the Empire State Pride Agenda has the ability to count to 32 State Senators needed to pass the legislation.

Paterson’s statement, “Why can’t a bill just be on the floor and lose?” suggesting that when you get the votes, you can always bring it back, sounds to some degree like a sell-out to Diaz or more of the Albany cosmetic reform.

Would a floor vote resulting in a defeat advance the agenda of the gay marriage movement?

Governor Paterson may think so, but his political judgment has not met the test of today’s politics.

A loss in New York State could be a set-back for a nationwide gay agenda which has been steadily picking up steam.

Vermont and Iowa legalized same-sex marriage earlier this month. They join Massachusetts and Connecticut as the only states which are legally committed to true equality for gays.

But the nationwide gay agenda is still suffering from a stinging loss last November when California voters approved a ballot initiative restricting marriage to heterosexual couples. It clearly does not need a major defeat on the east coast in a large state recognized nationwide as the as a leader in liberal social issues.

A Quinnipiac Poll from last month gave participants three choices on gay marriage: Support same sex marriage – 41%; support civil unions – 33%; deny any legal representation 19%. Clearly same sex marriage is no longer an anathema to the people of this state – if it ever was.

New York has always been in the forefront of social change and we have a Governor who is committed to the correct position. Can he achieve it?

Where I come from, any Governor worth his salt is able to find sufficient goodies in his budget to move the one or two votes needed for a major political victory. Projects in one’s district, appointments to State Commissions, promises of futures are the political weapon of choice when something matters to a Governor who has learned the political system.

I suggest that perhaps again, the Governor is out of political step and Malcolm Smith, along with the Empire State Pride Agenda, will have the bill held until they can count to 32 in the State Senate.

Or perhaps, our accidental Governor will step up to the plate and demonstrate real political courage and deliver principled legislation and not just rhetoric.

 
 
Pirates Over the Centuries: History and Popular Culture

By HENRY STERN

This column is an amalgam of history, popular culture and social attitudes. It is not a prescription for dealing with piracy; that task is for the policy-makers. We see the recent pirate situation as an illustration of today’s fractious world. Some pirates control countries, like North Korea and Iran. If present events continue, pirates will gain control of nuclear weapons. That prospect should be very much in the mind of our country’s leaders, who appear to believe they can protect the United States from attack with kind words.

Most of us believed that pirates were creatures of the past, now recalled without ill feelings in the names of sports teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Originally the word “buccaneer” applied to pirates who attacked Spanish and French shipping in the Caribbean in the late 17th century. Over the centuries, the meaning of the words has blended, but buccaneer suggests boldness and bravery, while “pirate” is not a compliment, despite the favorable image conveyed by Johnny Depp recently in a pirate film trilogy.

“Pirate” has an unfavorable meaning when it is used by the motion picture industry to describe film pirates, who steal or surreptitiously record original prints to sell DVDs, in violation of the laws of copyright and intellectual property. But at the same time, pirates who appear as characters in films are often depicted as heroic figures.

An early example of this portrayal is seen in “Captain Kidd,” a 1945 film. Kidd had been a privateer -- a mercenary sailor. He was employed by the British Navy to protect British ships and intercept French ships while the two countries were at war. Privateers were not paid by the Crown. Rather, their income was the wealth they could seize from enemy ships.

Hollywood showed its predilection for romanticized swashbucklers even before “Capatin Kidd.” In the 1935 film “Captain Blood,” Errol Flynn plays the title role of Peter Blood, an Irish doctor wrongfully accused of treason and sentenced to slavery in British Port Royal, in what is now Jamaica. Blood escapes, begins a new life as a pirate and, in the film’s climax, defends the British port from a hostile French fleet.

“Blood” was nominated for the Academy’s Best Picture award in 1935, and laid the groundwork for Flynn’s long career playing various outlaws and recalcitrants. Modern studios are betting that the “Blood” story retains its attractiveness almost a century after its initial release; a new version is slated for a 2011 rollout.

The pirates of the 21st century, whose activities flourished after the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, following a civil war, appear to be less bloodthirsty than their historic predecessors. Their motive is largely economic. They allege that their coastal waters were poisoned by Western vessels discharging toxic wastes in the ‘90s, leading to the collapse of their fisheries industry. Three hundred fifty years after the first wave of piracy in the Caribbean, and two hundred years after the Barbary pirates attacked the ships of the young United States in the Mediterranean Sea, a vast swath of the Indian Ocean east of Africa has become the center of pirate activity. The technology is much better now on both sides, swords having given way to AK-47s. This week, however, the United States relied on Navy SEAL (sea, air and land) sharpshooters (with night vision on their rifles) to execute three pirates holding an American hostage.

The next three highly informative sentences are abridged and but pirated -- with attribution, from Wikipedia.

“The Barbary Corsairs or Barbary Pirates, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa from the time of the Crusades (11th Century) until the early 19th century. They sailed mainly along the stretch of northern Africa known as the Barbary Coast. They primarily commandeered western European ships in the western Mediterranean Sea.

“In addition, they engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns, to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in places such as Algeria and Morocco.”

The word ‘corsair’ originated with French privateers. They gained a reputation for swashbuckling behavior.

This brief view of piracy, in history and in popular culture shows that while some things change, like weapons systems and means of communication, others remain the same, like the seven deadly sins. Piracy encompasses pride, greed and lust, but they are found in many other human activities.

StarQuest@NYCivic.org

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