New York Gov. David Paterson has called for a special session of the New York State Senate for a vote on a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in that state.

The bill passed the New York House earlier this summer.

According to NBCNewYork.com, Paterson believes he has enough votes in the Senate to pass the bill, but other sources said negotiations are likely to last late into the evening, and it still isn’t clear if marriage supporters have the 32 votes necessary to pass the legislation.

Democrats hold a “shaky 32-30″ majority in the Senate right now, and all 212 seats in the Legislature and the governor’s office up for re-election next year.

Coming a week after Maine voters exercised their “citizens veto” option to reject a same-sex marriage law there, the vote in New York could be either a fantastic boost to marriage rights supporters, or yet another crushing blow.

— Tammye Nash

Tags: gay rights, legislature, Maine, Marriage, New York, Paterson, Senate, vote

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 11:35 am and is filed under Activism, Discrimination, Elections, Marriage, Media, NEWS, People, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.