A bit of news was broken at the rally, too: Danny O'Donnell will officially be the prime sponsor of the marriage bill in the Assembly. Dick Gottfried had, in the words of Tom Duane "carried the torch" with the marriage bill up to this point. It wouldn't be right if we didn't thank him profusely for his TIRELESS work on building support for the bill.
Here are some crowd shots from the rally. They look great against the backdrop of the State Capitol Building and the State Education Building.
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I’m sitting in the car reflecting on our experience as we drive home from Albany to Rockville Centre. My partner of 22 years, Jeff is driving, and our 3 1/2 year old son, Josh is sleeping in the back seat.
In the morning, we had a respectful meeting with our NYS Assemblyman, Robert Barra. While Barra said he does not currently support the gay marriage bill, he did indicate his willingness to keep an open mind. However, he did say that he can support and would sign a civil union bill if it came across his desk today. At least that is a step in the right direction.
Next we attended the inspirational rally by the state capital.
Unfortunately, we had a disappointing afternoon. We had a scheduled 2 pm meeting with our NYS Senator, Dean Skelos. When we arrived at his office, we were told that we would not be able to meet with him or his staff. We pressed to have a brief meeting with him later today or over the next day or so and were told that he would not have time for us. In addition, we asked about meeting with him when he was back in his home district and were again told that he would not have time to meet with us.
This is all after Jeff has written several letters over the last few months in an attempt to setup a meeting to which he has not received a single response.
Is it that Senator Skelos does not have enough time to meet with constituents or just LGBT constituents?
We hope that others had productive meetings with their elected representatives and found them to be supportive or at least willing to engage in a dialog.
More later.
Andy, Jeff and Josh
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