A year and a half, five years, a few decades: “You guys have been together eleven and a half years—what does this mean to you?” “You’re engaged….how will this change your wedding plans?” (Something in the city rather than a country ceremony on another state.) “I popped the question in Paris—we’ve been waiting.” Two men had been together eight years; one had grown up on the Lower East, the other in Venezuela, and there had been immigration issues marriage would have helped with. Both of them were smiling, and the legal questions that had cost them years of worry and thousands of dollars seemed like the least of it, as crucial as they had been and remain; this was about love. “Wedding rings, wedding rings!” One of the men said.
Even in New York, it might have been surprising, a few years ago, that the local news angle was not controversy but couples. Now, quickly and happily, we have arrived at a better place. At one point, a reporter, discovering that two women weren’t actually engaged, seemed to be fishing for an on-air proposal. (Another, noting the absence of residency requirements, suggested that out-of-state couples would come to get married at Niagara Falls, “or any of the other great romantic sites in the state”—we do love New York around here.) An hour and a half after the bill got through (33-29 in the State Senate, with four Republican votes), Governor Cuomo signed it, meaning that weddings can begin in thirty days. There will be voices complaining about Friday’s vote—Archbishop Dolan, for example, who has been neither helpful nor humane—but they will be increasingly abashed.
Senator Stephen Saland, an upstate Republican, declared himself as the critical 32nd vote in favour on Friday night. Another Republican then joined two other members of his party who had already said they would back the bill, and 29 minority Democrats, to deliver the 33 votes.
In an emotional address, Mr Saland told fellow senators that he believed the issue was a question of equality.
