Same-Sex Marriage in N.Y. -- 2009 or 2010?

As hundreds of gay New Yorkers joined thousands across the country to protest for marriage rights Thursday, the prospect of a marriage-equality bill making it through the New York state legislature has dimmed, though activists say the curtain hasn’t fallen yet.

New York senate majority leader Malcolm Smith told attendees of the Human Rights Campaign Gala on Saturday that he strongly supports the right of same-sex couples to marry but that the votes are still lagging in the senate.

“Although we do not have the number of votes at this time needed to pass the marriage-equality agenda bill this legislative session, we are committed to pursuing its passage,” Smith said, “and the question is not if, the question is when. So our work still needs to happen for it to happen this year, but I'll need your help and I'll need your prayers."

Though some people took Smith’s comments as an indication that the 2009 marriage effort was all but dead, LGBT leaders were not as pessimistic.

"I am cautiously optimistic that if the community does the work we need to do in the districts we need to do them in, then we have a good chance at winning marriage equality this year," Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, told The Advocate. Van Capelle said he had already had 15 "very productive" meetings with state senators this session and, although he declined to say where the vote count stood, he added, "I think we're closer than most people think, but we're certainly not there yet."

Ethan Geto, a Democratic strategist, agreed that the bill is still shy on support, but said, “that is true for many pieces of legislation at the start of a legislative session that ultimately pass later in the session.”

Geto cited the example of the state assembly’s 2007 marriage-equality effort, which lacked the votes at the outset of the legislative session in January but eventually passed in June by a vote of 85-61. The push was helped when then-governor Eliot Spitzer made good on a campaign promise and introduced his own marriage bill, known as a "program bill" in Albany.

Asked if Gov. David Paterson might follow suit, Van Capelle said, "I don't particularly think we need a program bill this year from the governor -- a program bill is usually a signal to the legislature that a bill has the support of the governor. The governor has gone out of his way to support marriage equality, and so a program bill would serve no tactical function in helping us win marriage equality in 2009."

One more factor lighting a fire underneath senate Democrats is the political reality that the Democratic caucus likely would not have gained a majority in the state senate without gay funding -- a price tag The New York Times put at about $500,000 in an October 25, 2008, article, though many political insiders say the figure easily topped $1 million when all was said and done.

“The [Democratic] majority understands just how central the LGBT community is to their victory -- and their political fortunes in the future,” Geto said.

Smith was clear on that point, specifically mentioning the contributions of LGBT advocacy groups the Gill Action Fund, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Empire State Pride Agenda toward flipping the state senate to Democratic control.

"Most people don't recognize, they fail to grasp, how significant this particular campaign was," Smith said. "Not to minimize what happened in Washington -- I am thrilled about Barack Obama, the first African American president in the United States of America. But you can't take away what Gill [Action Fund], what HRC, and what [the Pride Agenda] has done in the state of New York."