{"id":892,"date":"2011-06-27T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=892"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:52:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:52:50","slug":"what-new-yorks-gay-marriage-law-reveals-about-american-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/06\/27\/what-new-yorks-gay-marriage-law-reveals-about-american-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"What New York\u2019s Gay Marriage Law Reveals About American Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Kammer\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

On Sunday, the New York Times ran an important piece by Michael\u00a0Barbaro\u00a0called \u201cBehind N.Y. Gay Marriage, an Unlikely Mix of Forces<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Many publications,\u00a0rightly so<\/a>, are\u00a0celebrating<\/a>\u00a0New York\u2019s long-overdue passage of same-sex marriage legislation.\u00a0 But what\u2019s noteworthy about Barbaro\u2019s piece is that it reveals how this bill actually passed NY\u2019s Republican\u00a0Senate.<\/p>\n

What it uncovers about the state of American democracy is not nearly as reassuring as the passage of gay marriage legislation appears at first glance.\u00a0The whole article is worth reading, but this quote gets right to the heart of it:<\/p>\n

\u201c[The story of how same-sex marriage became legal]\u00a0was really about a Republican Party reckoning with a profoundly changing power dynamic, where Wall Street donors and gay-rights advocates demonstrated more might and muscle than a Roman Catholic hierarchy and an ineffective opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although a tremendously effective nationwide gay-rights movement clearly helped change cultural attitudes about same-sex marriage, this bill, as Barbaro points out,\u00a0only passed because several influential, \u201csuper-rich\u201d Republican donors managed to push a few Senate Republicans into breaking party lines.<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he donors in the room \u2014 the billionaire Paul Singer, whose son is gay, joined by the hedge fund managers Cliff Asness and Daniel Loeb \u2014 had the influence and the money to insulate nervous senators from conservative backlash if they supported the marriage measure.\u00a0 And they were inclined to see the issue as one of personal freedom, consistent with their more libertarian views.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin days, the wealthy Republicans sent back word: They were on board. Each of them cut six-figure checks to the lobbying campaign that eventually totaled more than $1 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the article also draws attention to NY Senator Kruger\u2019s personal change of heart and NY Senator\u00a0Addabbo\u2019s decision to poll his district, the\u00a0overarching lesson remains: social policy only gets passed in this country when business interests\u00a0throw their weight behind it<\/a>. Same-sex marriage, in other words, was only able to pass because there wasn\u2019t significant corporate pressure opposing it.<\/p>\n

Our purportedly democratic institutions increasingly allow only for legislation that earns the favor an already moneyed minority. Thankfully those interests depend less and less on homophobic opposition to marriage between same-sex, consenting adults.\u00a0 Yet, corporate sponsorship should not be a prerequisite for legislative activity.<\/p>\n

In the face of\u00a0weakening civic institutions<\/a>\u00a0and rapidly rising\u00a0economic inequality<\/a>, it\u2019s clear that those who can afford to influence policy often pursue policies with little concern for the broader public.\u00a0 A real test of this democracy\u2019s health would be passing legislation that is meaningfully adverse to the interests of those same corporate entities that in the past 3 years gave us some of the worst economic and ecological disasters in the nation\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s\u00a0inadequate<\/a>\u00a0response to BP, the\u00a0half-hearted<\/a>\u00a0Dodd-Frank bill, and Dodd-Frank\u2019s even more\u00a0half-hearted implementation<\/a>\u00a0don\u2019t do much to restore confidence. And frankly, the back-room deals that produced NY\u2019s same-sex marriage bill shouldn\u2019t either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony Kammer\u00a0 On Sunday, the New York Times ran an important piece by Michael\u00a0Barbaro\u00a0called \u201cBehind N.Y. Gay Marriage, an Unlikely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-eo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}