Paul Schindler interviewed Governor Cuomo about the marriage win in New York. It's a great read:
“I don’t know if we get another one like this again.”And, he did. I found the interview -- and Paul's telling of i -- quite compelling.
With a tone best described as triumphant wonderment, those are the words New York Governor Andrew Cuomo chose to begin his account of how he led the state’s leading marriage equality advocates to victory on June 24.
In an interview with Gay City News four days after that win, the governor said, “Let’s face it, this was a long shot,” when asked where his confidence in winning the battle during his first six months in office came from.
“I didn’t have confidence,” Cuomo continued. “I had commitment to make the effort to get this done.”
And this is encouraging, on several levels -- advocates successfully advocating and a bright future:
In raising that caution, Cuomo was clearly not referring to any missteps he encountered in the work with the advocacy groups his office had marshaled for months. Of that coalition –– which included the Empire State Pride Agenda, the Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Marry, the Log Cabin Republicans, Marriage Equality New York, and the Gill Action Fund –– the governor said, “The unity was extraordinary. These were extraordinary people who put their egos aside and were unified to get the job done.” He specifically mentioned the efforts of ESPA’s Ross Levi, HRC’s Brian Ellner, Emily Giske, a government affairs specialist at Bolton-St. Johns, and the Gill team.
As he did the night the bill was passed, the governor spoke in detail this week about the “power” of New York’s example in enlivening the marriage equality push nationwide. Asked if in five years, other states will wonder why they too hadn’t moved forward in 2011, he responded, “Yes, but it won’t take five years.” Then, referring to the standing advocates already have to press the issue elsewhere, he said, “It has become a legitimate issue, even a litmus test.”
