Marty Golden: playing politics with our families
May 19th, 2011 at 9:45 pm ETI don’t know what possesses someone like Brooklyn’s State Senator Marty Golden to undertake to curtail the civil rights of hundreds or thousands of New Yorkers, by introducing a bill to enjoin the state from treating a certain class of legally married New Yorkers as married under the law.
It’s not like he said “gosh, you know, I have mixed feelings about marriage equality, so I’m going to arrange to be out of town when we vote on this or that.” It’s not even like he said “you know, I don’t like gay people, so I’m going to lobby my colleagues to vote in this way or that.” No. He spent staff time and state money to conceive of, draft, and introduce a bill whose sole purpose is to use the power of the state to take de facto protections away from people who currently have them. He took an affirmative action whose only purpose and only outcome is to hurt actual families — not theoretical members of a theoretical class, but actual New York families. (Hey, Marty, try getting out of the house sometime. There are gay people in Bay Ridge now and everything.)
This isn’t about saving money, or clarifying the law; it’s about hurting people to score political points. Don’t stand for it! Call Marty’s office at 718-238-6044 and let him know he’s made a mistake. More here and here.
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Rich Mintz blogs on online fundraising and social media, American history and culture, bicycling and urbanism, food, technology, and other topics. Professionally, he's an expert in fundraising, constituency development, and social media for nonprofits, cultural organizations, cause-related marketers, and corporations. He is based in New York, where he serves as Vice President, Strategy, for 
