Dawidziak: The politics of gay marriage

Michael Dawidziak is a political consultant and pollster.

The debate over gay marriage is taking center stage in New York politics. That's surprising, because fiscal concerns, not social issues, are dominating the polls. When asked to name their No. 1 concern, voters say taxes, government spending, unemployment, economic development and housing prices. Social issues like gay marriage hardly register at all.

But while it's true that, for the majority of voters, gay marriage isn't a crucial issue, it's just as true that people on both sides of the argument are passionate about their positions. And perhaps most important, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has made gay marriage, along with a property tax cap and ethics reform, one of his top three agenda items for his inaugural year.

The modus operandi in Albany is to put all issues on the table at once. While agreements -- as for the tax cap and ethics reform so far -- may be announced separately, they generally are all part of the negotiations. So packaging these issues together is a brilliant political game plan -- it promises something for everyone.

Polls show the timing is ripe for all three issues; even though gay marriage isn't a primary concern, its support has been consistently growing. This puts Cuomo in a very strong bargaining position. He's picked his spot well, and this is a man who doesn't like to lose.

All of this has given proponents for same-sex marriage in New York the belief that this is their best chance to date of getting it passed. They are shrewdly keeping their arguments on an equality and civil-rights basis. Coordinating their talking points with Cuomo, they point out that same sex partners are denied 700 state rights and 1,000 federal rights that are granted to married couples.

On the other side, the right -- particularly the Conservative Party -- has drawn a line in the sand on same-sex marriage. State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long has threatened to withhold his party's crucial endorsement from any lawmaker who votes for gay marriage.

This is a particularly potent threat to the Republican Party's tenuous hold on the majority in the State Senate. The Conservative line could easily be the margin of victory for enough of the senators to swing the balance of power back to the Democrats.

This hard-line approach by the Conservatives might at first seem puzzling. After all, they made big gains among moderates last year by sticking to the fiscal issues that are their strength. The problem is that when it comes to social issues, they would view passage of gay marriage in New York as losing ground.

The battle over the right's other major social issue, abortion, has largely been lost, if not forsaken. States don't come much redder than South Dakota, and in 2006, when that state's legislature passed an abortion ban, the voters rejected the measure in a November referendum. If you can't ban abortion in South Dakota, you certainly can't in a blue state like New York.

The fight over gay marriage, however, is still very much alive to the right. It's a fight it doesn't want to lose.

In the end, this becomes a huge test of the governor's leadership and deal-making ability. The left might not want the property tax cap, but it doesn't want to be blamed for killing ethics reform and same-sex marriage. The right might not want gay marriage, but it doesn't want to be viewed as killing ethics reform and the property tax cap.

With less than two weeks to go in this legislative session, voters should be paying attention. Inaction might be the rule in Albany, but history may yet be made.