Here's a bit from a post at the Close Read at The New Yorker ....
[...] 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. Ours is the sixth state, plus the District of Columbia, to legalize same-sex marriage. 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.
Why the change in public opinion? Governor Cuomo, in his victory speech, said that the challenge in passing “marriage equality” had been getting people to focus on the second word—equality—rather than the first one. Maybe; he got this one through the absurdist maze of Albany, when other governors had failed, and so he probably knows what he’s talking about in terms of lobbying tactics. (President Obama, in contrast, has been more of a follower than a leader.) And the situation was urgently unfair .....
On Faith has asked the question ....
A bill legalizing same-sex marriage for couples in New York state is at a standstill over the issue of exemptions for religious organizations and individuals. The reach of these religious protections is wide-ranging -from whether Catholic adoption agencies may reject same-sex couples, to the right of religious caterers to refuse services for gay weddings. In New York’s Marriage Equality Act, should there be exemptions for religion? What should happen when equal rights for gay citizens and the right to religious free exercise clash?
You can read about the exemptions here - Religious exceptions within New York’s gay marriage bill
