NY Republican Votes For Marriage Equality And Battles For Reelection

Today's TIMES has an interesting story about a Republican state senator Roy Mcdonald who was one the key four votes in passing marriage equality in New York state last summer.  Now, he's up for reelection and his opponent is making his vote the number one issue in his reelection.  The question is, in economic hard times, will voters even care?  What I find even more interesting is that his opponent concedes that there is no way the state's law can be reversed or re-voted on either.  So it's a true case of water under the bridge but she has been relentless in her attacks on her opponent. And, obviously, the advent of gays getting married in the state has not brought about the apocalypse or the collapse of society so it seems like she doesn't have much of a case really.

Let's hope that the votes upstate can see this tactic for what it is...a desperate measure by a fringe candidate to get some attention. Roy Mcdonald won a lot of gay fans (and financial support for his campaign) with his common sense approach to an issue that all too often becomes conflated with things that are entirely irrelevant to it (i.e. the "threat" to "traditional" marriage).  I particularly love his quote in the article today below. I think we could really use more wise men, Republicans or Democrats, like Mr. Mcdonald serving in government today.

“I’m in the party of Abraham Lincoln — I’m very proud of that,” he said. “I’m not in a party of a bunch of right-wing nitwits. It’s Abraham Lincoln. It’s everybody’s included. And I feel that’s very important.”