R.I.P. Mario Cuomo

"Vote for Cuomo, not the homo!"

Posters bearing that message lined Queens Boulevard in the days leading up to the 1977 primary to determine the Democratic Party's candidate in that year's election for the mayor of New York City.  

Just about anyone who witnessed that campaign will tell you it was one of the ugliest in his or her memory.  I would concur with them:  That message, believe it or not, wasn't even the meanest or nastiest thing one candidate said about another in that race.

But it was almost certainly one of the sleaziest.  Cuomo--Mario, the father of current New York State governor Andrew--always denied that neither he nor any of his staffers had anything to do with creating or posting that message.  I believe him.  So do most other people, even those who were against everything he stood for, or who simply disliked him.  There was no shortage of either of those kinds of people.

Among them was Ed Koch, who won that primary and the election.  Until the day he died nearly two years ago, he insisted that Mario was responsible but later would say that he "forgave" but "didn't forget."

Rumors about Koch's non-heterosexuality followed him throughout his life.  Even in 1977, in the pre-AIDS flowering of the Gay Liberation movement, such an allegation could have derailed his road to Gracie Mansion; any evidence that it was true would have blocked it altogether.  Even in New York City, there were--and still are--homophobes.  

Now, I just happen to be one of those people who believe that Koch was gay but have never cared about it.  I had other reasons for disliking him and his style of governance, none of which had to do with his actual or perceived proclivities or lifestyle.

The irony is, of course, that Mario Cuomo would have been one of the last people to use a charge of homosexuality against Koch, or anyone else.  If anything, Mario was more unabashedly an ally of LGBT people than his son is.  The reason why same-sex marriage and other LGBT-friendly legislation passed under the younger Cuomo's residence in the Governor's Mansion is that the political and social climate has allowed for it.  

Andrew was elected Governor of New York State in 2010, in the middle of Barack Obama's first term as President.  His father, in contrast, earned his first of three gubernatorial election victories in 1982, just when the effects of Ronald Reagan's alliance with Christian fundamentalists--and his profoundly anti-labor (remember: he fired all of the nation's air traffic controllers when they went on strike the previous year) policies--were re-shaping this country's discourse and governance.  Mario's three terms in Albany coincided with the Presidencies of Reagan and George H.W. Bush, as well as the first two years of Bill Clinton's.  While the latter was nominally a Democrat, he won the 1992 Presidential election by co-opting the policies of Reagan and Bush the Elder.  Mario, on the other hand, stuck to his New Deal Democrat ideals--which, he always said, were an outgrowth of his Christian faith.  

In other words, Andrew has been surfing the tide of history that his father had to swim against.  But, to be fair, it must be said that it wasn't his championing of LGBT rights that cost Mario a fourth term as governor in 1994.  Rather, it was another of his core principles--one that, by the way, caused me to vote for him:  his staunch opposition to capital punishment.  Every year that he was Governor, the State legislature introduced a bill to restore the death penalty in the Empire State.  Every year that he was governor, he vetoed it.  One of the first things his successor, Republican George Pataki, did upon assuming office in 1995 was to sign it.

I think that his steadfast commitment to his principles may have been a major reason why he chose not to run for President, even though his party practically begged him to do so in 1988 and 1992.  If that's the case, his instincts were canny:  Clinton, who stood against much of what Mario believed in, won. 

(Actually, many would argue that Clinton won by not standing for anything at all--and with perhaps-inadvertent help from third-party candidate Ross Perot.  I would not dispute such an argument.)

So, in brief, with Mario Cuomo's death yesterday, this state--and nation--lost who may have been the last true liberal and the last true intellectual, as well as one of the few politicians with any real principles, this country has ever had.  And, oh yes, a champion of LGBT rights before it was fashionable. 

Will GENDA Pass This Time?

Ten years ago, New York City amended its Human Rights Law with language to forbid discrimination in housing, employment and city services on the basis of gender identity and expression.  At that time, seventy-four jurisdictions had such laws.

Now, New York State is considering something similar.  Sixteen other states and 143 cities and counties--in all parts of the country--have such laws.  Lest you think that Empire State lawmakers have suddenly been enlightened, think again.  The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act  (GENDA) has been up for vote for years now.  It usually passes in the State Assembly, in which Democrats have long dominated, but fails in the State Senate.  At various times, the Senate has had Republican majorities, but even when that party didn't have the numbers, it had influential leaders, like Joseph Bruno, from conservative upstate areas.


After Bruno chose not to seek re-election in 2008, many of us thought the Act had a greater chance of becoming law.  Our optimism was further stoked by the "tipping" of the Senate to a Democratic majority, however slight it may be.  Plus, in Andrew Cuomo, we now have a governor who's willing to sign the Act into law.  


What disheartens us, though, is that the State continues to be "late to the party."  In the same year the City amended its human rights laws to protect transgender people, the State finally passed the Sexual Orientation Non Discrimination Act.  Insiders say that it passed only because the provisions encoded in GENDA were left out of it.  It seems that, as distasteful as gay rights may have been to some conservatives, lesbians and gays had become too large a voting bloc to ignore.  (They tend to vote at higher rates than the population in general.)  On the other hand, the numbers of transgender people are much smaller, and we tend to be poorer than gay men and, to a lesser extent, lesbians.  Plus, the fact that so many of us--especially our young--are unemployed, or even homeless, makes it harder for us to organize campaigns.


I hope that the State finally does what sixteen others have already done--and what it should have done ten years ago, when the City recognized gender identity and expression in its human rights laws.

 

Same-Sex Marriage in New York: Where Next?

Tonight, the New York State Senate voted, by a 33 to 29 margin, to legalize same-sex marriages.  Two upstate Republicans, who had been undecided, cast votes in favor of the bill that allows for same-sex unions, and broke the deadlock in the Senate.  The State Assembly voted, by a wider margin, in favor of the bill last week.  

About an hour after the vote, Governor Andrew Cuomo singned the bill into law.  Now New York State joins neighboring Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont, as well as New Hampshire, Iowa and the District of Columbia, in legalizing same-sex unions.  


The Coquille nation, whose members live mainly along the Oregon Coast, also have legalized same-sex marriage.  They did so two years ago, and there was no mention of it in the mainstream press.  In one sense, it's not difficult to understand why:  In the 2000 Census, exactly 576 people identified themselves as Coquille.  


What is interesting (and disturbing to some) is that New York is the sixth state to legalize same-sex unions.  How, exactly, did those other states--including Iowa!--beat New York to legalizing same-sex unions?


Well, I don't have a complete answer to that. And I can only venture any sort of answer at all.  But I can venture a guess.  


One peculiarity of New York City and State politics is the degree to which the Roman Catholic church has influence.  When Cardinal O'Connor headed the Archdiocese of New York, no one was elected as Mayor or Governor without his approval and endorsement.  Archbishop Timothy Dolan may not yet have anything like O'Connor's influence.  Then again, he's been in the position for less than a year.  Still, one cannot deny the influence he and the Church have, even at this early stage of his stewardship. 


Now, it's true that there are many Catholics in Massachusetts, particularly in the Boston area.  But even when the Irish were the main ethnic group in Boston, the clerical hierarchy of the local Archdiocese never seemed to gain the sort of power and influence that they did in New York.  If what I've just said is correct, it would be interesting to find out how and why that happened. 


Now, I've never been to Iowa.  But I have been to all of the other states (and DC) that have legalized same-sex marriage.  Granted, Connecticut and Vermont are the only ones (besides Massachusettes and, of course, New York) in which I've spent extended periods of time.  However, I think I've learned enough to form some impressions of each one.  


It seems to me that no particular church or religious organization has the sort of influence over those states that the Archdiocese has over New York.  That may be due to the fact that New York has always had such a large immigrant population and that so many of those immigrants were Catholic.  In fact, three of the City's and State's four largest ethnic groups through most of the twentieth century--the Irish, Germans and Italians--were mainly (in the case of the Italians, almost entirely) Roman Catholic.  They didn't have a non-Catholic aristocracy keeping them in check, the way the old-line WASP families did to the Irish Catholics in Boston. Or, at any rate, New York's equivalents to that ruling class, which had been mainly of Dutch and English heritage, had dissipated or disappeared entirely by the end of the 19th Century. And the largest non-Catholic ethnic group--the Jews--mostly allied themselves with the Irish and Italians, and later Hispanics (most of whom are Catholic) on political issues.  That effectively strengthened the Catholic hold on the city.  And, as New York City goes, so goes New York State.


On the other hand, the other states that now have same-sex marriage never had anything like the high numbers of immigrants, particularly from mostly-Catholic countries, that New York and Massachusetts have had.  In fact, religion seems to play very little, if any, of a role at all in politics and public life in Vermont and New Hampshire.  There seems to be more religiosity in Iowa, but there doesn't seem to be a dominant church as there is in New York or, to a lesser degree, in Massachusetts.


Knowing these things makes me wonder which state or jurisdiction will be the next one to legalize same-sex marriages.  Perhaps Proposition 8 will be struck down in California.  Or will Oregon or Washington legalize gay marriages before then?  On the other hand, I don't expect that New Jersey will have gay marriage as long as Chris Cristie is Governor, although I expect the Garden State to wed same-sex couples before most other states.  Whatever happens, I'm sure that New York is not going to be the last jurisdiction in the US to allow same-sex marriages.