LGBT activists
say soon-to-be New York governor David Paterson will be a
boon for LGBT rights and a healer in Albany.
Lt. Governor
David Paterson, who will assume the responsibilities of
governor of New York on Monday, March 17, is viewed by gay
and trans activists alike as the staunchest of
supporters for the LGBT community. Paterson will be
the first African-American and legally blind governor of
the state.
“He has
been there in every critical fight over the last two
decades,” said Matt Foreman, executive director
of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, naming
hate-crimes legislation introduced in 1987
and passed in 2000, the Sexual Orientation
Nondiscrimination Act (SONDA) passed in 2002, and the
ongoing fight to legalize same-sex marriage.
Though SONDA was
not trans-inclusive, transgender activist Melissa
Sklarz, director of New York Trans Rights Organization
(NYTRO), said Paterson, who was the state senate
minority leader at the time, labored to find a route
for protecting trans people.
“When we
tried to change the SONDA law in 2002, David Paterson was
hugely supportive of us,” Sklarz said. More
generally, she added that Paterson’s own
personal struggles allow him to empathize with those who are
sometimes considered outsiders. “He knows what
it’s like to overcome adversity. He knows what
it’s like when people are judged negatively at
first impression,” she said.
Foreman noted the
political reality of getting SONDA passed was that it
took 31 years, and the bill the state Assembly advanced was
not trans-inclusive. “We had many anguished
meetings,” said Foreman, who was executive
director of the Empire State Pride Agenda at the time.
“As minority leader of the senate, there was
only so much [Paterson] could do. Getting SONDA
through the Republican senate and signed by a
Republican governor was a huge lift.”
Paterson himself
counted passing SONDA and hate crimes as two of his
biggest accomplishments in a 2006 interview with this
reporter. Paterson, who represented Harlem in the
state senate from 1987 to 2006, refused to pass the
hate-crimes bill without protections for gays and lesbians.
“Writing
the first hate crimes bill in the state, with an opportunity
pass it in 1987, and turning my back on it because it
didn’t include sexual orientation was another
thing I was really proud of,” then Sen.
Paterson said in August 2006. “I knew it was the
right thing to do, and it was the first big test of
right versus personal enhancement where I did the
right thing.”
Paterson was also
an early supporter of same-sex marriage, going on
record as early as 1994. According to LGBT activist and
Democratic political consultant Ethan Geto, he took a
critical part in lobbying for passage of Gov.
Spitzer’s marriage equality bill in the New York
State assembly last year.
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Kerry Eleveld is news editor of The Advocate.