Republican Gov. George Pataki on Tuesday signed a landmark gay-rights bill just hours after the GOP-controlled state Senate approved the measure.

Although the outcome remained unclear until the very moment votes were cast, the bill known as the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) passed the Senate 34-26, marking a significant victory for gay-rights advocates who have been fighting for the measure for 31 years. The Democrat-dominated Assembly passed SONDA earlier this year, as it has annually since 1993.

"I'm very pleased," said Pataki, who had personally lobbied some senators to vote for SONDA. "We're one New York. It's not upstate, downstate, Republican, Democrat, black, white, straight, gay. The passage of this bill is another important step in confirmation of that."

SONDA extends the state's civil rights laws to make discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, employment, education, health care and other public services illegal. Eleven other states and the District of Columbia have similar laws on their books.

The long-awaited victory was particularly sweet for the Empire State Pride Agenda, New York's largest gay-rights group, which endorsed Pataki in his bid for a third term this fall. Many believe it was part of a political deal between the Pride Agenda and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, who agreed to bring SONDA up for a vote after years of blocking it but didn't promise it would pass.

Sen. Daniel Hevesi, D-Queens, who is not returning to the Senate next year, condemned the way SONDA came up for a vote, calling it "simply reprehensible."

"The way this bill came to the floor today was not through some Democratic process," said Hevesi, who voted for SONDA but wanted it amended to include protection for transgender individuals. "It was a deal made solely for political expediency."

Both Bruno, who voted for SONDA, and Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Matt Foreman denied any deal. Foreman hailed SONDA as "one of the broadest anti-gay discrimination laws in the nation."

But the win was bittersweet for senators and advocates who unsuccessfully sought to include protection for transgender people -- transsexuals, cross-dressers, effeminate men and masculine women.

"I feel great about SONDA passing, but I feel like I have to get up tomorrow and fight again because not everyone got covered," said Sen. Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan, the Senate's only openly gay and openly HIV-positive member.

After painting a grim picture of how transgender people are discriminated against for their nonconformist lifestyles and appearances, Duane introduced an amendment to extend SONDA to cover "gender expression." It failed, 19-40, with only Democrats in favor.

The unamended version passed with 21 Democrats and 13 Republicans voting for it.

Duane pledged to introduce a bill next year that would protect transgender people, and Foreman said Empire State Pride Agenda would use SONDA as a springboard from which to fight for it. But transgender activists who traveled to the Capitol from New York City were not consoled.

"I'm disappointed," said Chelsea Goodwin, program director of the Metropolitan Gender Network. "I want to send a message that backroom political deals that extend to some of us, but not all of us, are not acceptable and will not be tolerated."

The vote on SONDA generated more controversy and caused more uncertainty than the Senate has seen in a long time. Typically, bills that make it to the floor for a vote have a virtual lock on passing. But headcounts on SONDA remained close right down to the wire, leading to intense lobbying by those both in favor and against it.

Lines of people who wanted to sit in the Senate galleries to witness the historic debate and vote snaked down the fourth-floor hallway and around the corner.

Early in the day, activists who were ironically seeking the same outcome -- SONDA's demise -- clashed during a rally outside the Capitol.

Transgender activists wanted the measure rejected unless it included them. Conservative activists said the bill would unfairly provide special protection for a specific group of people and argued that it would infringe on the right of religious individuals or groups to refuse to hire or provide services to those who don't share their views.

"Christian businessmen should have the right to not hire people that they believe are engaged in immoral behavior," said the Rev. Duane Motley of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms. "Christian landlords should have the right to rent to people that they believe are morally upright. Churches and Christian schools have the right to say homosexuality is a sin without fear of being accused of hate speech."

Sen. Nancy Larraine Hoffmann, a Syracuse Republican who sponsored SONDA, said the bill does not alter clauses in the existing civil rights law that exempt religious organizations. But some senators, like Hugh Farley, R-Niskayuna, were not convinced.

"The lack of a comprehensive religious exemption, that alone is enough for me to vote 'no,' " said Farley.

Senate passes anti-gay bias law

State also adopts tough DWI measure

By SHIRIN PARSAVAND
Gazette Reporter

ALBANY - The state Senate passed laws banning discrimination against gays and lesbians and lowering the legal standard for driving while intoxicated during a one-day session Tuesday.

Gay activists hailed passage of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act, which passed 34-26, as a hard-fought victory. But some of their allies saw it as a setback because it didn't include protections for so-called transgendered people, including cross-dressers and people who undergo sex-change surgery.

In a special one-day session, the Senate also passed legislation lifting a salary cap for BOCES superintendents and confirmed the nomination of Sen. James Lack to a seat on the state Court of Claims.

It also voted to eliminate a requirement counties repay Medicaid funds advanced to them over several years and to extend the state's power-plant siting law. Both were symbolic gestures, since the Assembly hasn't taken equivalent action and doesn't intend to return until January.

The bill outlawing anti-gay discrimination passed after months of suspense, since Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, had said he didn't know if it had the votes to pass.

Gov. George Pataki won an endorsement for re-election from the Empire State Pride Agenda after Bruno said in October he would bring the bill to the floor.

Bruno himself voted for the bill, along with 12 other Republican senators and 21 Democrats. Twenty-three Republicans and three Democrats voted against the bill.

Sen. Hugh T. Farley, R-Niskayuna, was one of the `no' votes. He said he was concerned the bill did not include an exemption for religious institutions.

"I think that alone is enough to make somebody vote no," Farley said.

The bill is identical to one that has passed the Democrat-controlled Assembly every year since 1993. Pataki signed it later Tuesday.

The law will go into effect in 30 days. Twelve other states already have laws banning discrimination against gays.

Sen. Thomas Duane, the Sen- ate's only openly gay member, proposed an amendment to include transgendered people in the law, but it failed by a vote of 19-41.

Duane said he plans to introduce legislation next year to extend protection to transgendered people, which already is in place in Minnesota and Rhode Island.

"I promised the transgender community I'm not going to forget, and I'm not going to give up the fight for your inclusion," the Manhattan Democrat said. "The battle for that begins right away."

Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Albany, who voted for the amendment and the bill, said many will benefit from the bill as enacted. He said it would have been harder to get the Senate majority to agree to the bill in the future if it didn't pass this year.

Advocates rejoiced as the vote was read.

"It's a great day for Albany, and it's a great day for the state of New York," said Libby Post, president of the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Council and one of the founders of the Pride Agenda.

But transgendered people, many of whom traveled from New York City to the Capitol on Tuesday, were angry they were left out. Charles King, co-president of the AIDS group Housing Works, said it has pressed since 1988 for transgendered people to be included in SONDA.

"I think it would be an absolute and utter tragedy if SONDA passes today without inclusion of the transgender community," he said before the vote.

Some religious organizations and others fought the bill because they object to homosexuality. Michael Brennan of Rochester called the bill an "attack on the family."

"Nobody can interfere with their rights and how they practice their sexual lives, and nobody is trying to," said Brennan, who carried a sign reading "God's Plan is Marriage Between a Husband and Wife."

The bill lowering the standard for a DWI charge from 0.10 percent to 0.08 percent was necessary for the state to avoid losing tens of millions of federal highway aid dollars. The state already has lost $22 million in federal incentive money over the last two years because it did not lower the standard and set higher penalties for repeat offenders, according to Bruno.

Senate Republicans wanted the 0.08 standard and higher penalties to be dealt with as part of one bill, but Bruno finally gave way to the Assembly Democrats' insistence they be dealt with separately.

The Senate also passed separate bills Tuesday to increase penalties for repeat drunken drivers and drivers with very high blood alcohol levels.

The 0.08 bill approved by the Assembly earlier this year called for it to go into effect Nov. 1, with the assumption the bill would take effect this year. The Senate amended it so it could start March 1, 2003, but the earlier start would require action by the Assembly.

An average-sized man would reach the 0.08 threshold after having about four drinks in an hour on an empty stomach, while it would take three drinks for an average-sized woman.

The confirmation to the Court of Claims of Lack, a Long Island Republican who has served in the Senate since 1979, came after a Senate Judicial Screening Committee found him well-qualified for the court.

Lack, who was chairman of the Senate's judiciary committee, was involved in a "road rage" incident on Long Island in 2001. He apologized to the other driver, who did not press charges.

A group called the Center for Judicial Accountability issued a statement criticizing Lack for his chairmanship of the judiciary committee, saying he violated procedural rules and did not take enough time in considering judicial nominations.

Contact Shirin Parsavand at 462-2499 or shirin@dailygazette.com.
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reply to Gazette Newspapers: gazette@dailygazette.com

For those neo-conservatives who support the civil rights positions of 1960s liberals like Martin Luther King, Lyndon Johnson, and Hubert Humphrey, and howled for Trent Lott's blood after his remarks about the Dixiecrats, the fact that the New York legislature extended legal "protection" to homosexuals and other sexual deviants should serve as warning. Federal and state civil rights laws violated numerous rights, such as the right to private property, the right of contract, and the right of freedom of association, in order to ensure "equal treatment" of racial minorities. The civil rights movement morphed into affirmative action, a reverse discrimination policy that the cowardly Trent Lott, in groveling on Black Entertainment Television, says he supports. Then it mutated again, to ensure that women can hold positions thay are neither physically nor temprementally suited. The latest manifestation is "gay" rights, accompanied by the latent threat that Christian clergy who preach or carry out in their churches what the Bible teaches on these matters may be subject to criminal charges.

I must wonder if the neo-conservatives of 2022 will defend the justice of homosexual privileges granted in the 1990s and early 2000s even as the liberals of that year promote whatever their latest outrage will be.

It's a mighty sad day when outright sin becomes a "protected-by-law" civil right.

We're getting things entirely backwards in this country, going away from a once sound understanding of good and evil and what constituted a genuine "right". We may as well start looking forward to paying the heavy price.

In point of fact, the process has already started. It's not going to produce results many of us will like.

Romans

1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 1:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Nothing new under the sun. I just wish there was another "New World" out there to go to.

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