AS NY assembly shelves gay marriage vote… we must start the Great Big Gay PR Campaign

 NY assembly shelves gay marriage vote…

(AFP) –reported  8 hours ago-  NEW YORK — New York’s state assembly on Tuesday put off a tentatively planned vote on a bill that would allow same-sex marriage. “A vote did not take place. They are negotiating,” a spokeswoman for the assembly’s upper house, the State Senate, told AFP.

Governor David Paterson had asked Monday for the upper house to vote Tuesday on a bill allowing gay nuptials. The bill was approved in the state’s lower house in May, but faces a tougher battle in the Senate. Commentators said it was unlikely to have mustered the necessary 32 votes.

No date was set for the next possible debate and vote on the measure. The issue is being raised in New York days after voters in Maine voted in a referendum to overturn a gay marriage law passed by their state legislature in May.

Maine was the third state where voters repealed the local government’s approval of same-sex marriage rights, following California and Hawaii. Gay marriage has not yet won a popular vote in any US state. Five states that have moved to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples have done so through court rulings or votes in the state legislature. Those states are Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont. New Hampshire will allow gay marriage starting in January.

Melanie Nathan’s Comment  :  This is just too much.  I keep thinking why do they disapprove of us?  Why are we so badly thought of  by our fellow Americans-  that they would not want to give us our equality?   It makes me realize that we need a PR Campaign. One where we can introduce our families to America. We must get out there and be visible. Perhaps activists in a less aggressive fashion. (Although there is room for that too! )  But we must march our families to the fore of public opinion.  By Showing America who we are and waht we do for our Communities and  Country.  We have depended for too long on Non-profits with itemized and limited agendas.  Although great progress has been made, most of America does not know who we truly are, that we are the same as they are. We must pitch stories to local press, volunteer in our communities, join Board and Committees, Be on the PTA, . Perhaps readers can comment on PR ideas.

We should all take up the MANTRA:  “look me in the eye and tell me I am not the same as you” Per openly gay NY City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.    I Invite you all to JOIN the Great Gay PR Campaign. We must change minds and public opinion win hearts or whatever that cliche suggests…. this is up to eacg and every one of us.   This is the only way we will win – together of course with unified and not fragmented advocacy. 

Blogged by MELANIE NATHAN, CEO of Private Courts, Inc. Consulting, mediation & private advocacy ; motivated by injustice, I blog about family law/mediation, politics, news and LGBT equality and anything that ‘tickles my fancy.’ Otherwise blogging as O-blog-dee-o-blog-da. Websites and blogs include: http://www.privatecourts.com; http://www.divorcemediators.us; www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com.