State Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long is calling on Republican state senators to keep a gay marriage bill from ever reaching the Senate floor.
The influential party leader sent a letter to the Republican majority in the Senate which can pass or kill a gay marriage bill that would be a major national win for the cause.
Republicans could send the bill to the floor as early as Wednesday.
Long cites a recent Siena College poll that found same-sex marriage was a distant third among New Yorkers’ priorities.
Instead, Long says the Legislature must focus on economic issues.
Long acknowledges that he may be close to losing the issue, but says he’s encouraged that the stalled process shows it still could go his way.
This year’s nationally scrutinized battle over whether to legalize gay marriage has attracted big money. One longtime Albany lobbyist describes it as a “limitless” amount of lobbying dollars and campaign contributions from gay marriage advocates.
Susan Lerner of the good-government group Common Cause says she hasn’t seen anything like the spending over gay marriage since the abortion fights of the 1970s.
Both sides have had commitments of over a million dollars, mostly from national advocates for their position.
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