Spitzer's gay gamble

The New York governor bucks a national trend: he wants to let gays marry.

According to an article in this morning's New York Times, New York governor Eliot Spitzer will soon do what has long been considered political suicide in the US: introduce a bill to legalise gay marriage.

The development is significant because so few politicians with national profiles (much less national ambitions) are willing to voice support for same-sex weddings. (To the best of this blogger's knowledge, Spitzer, a Democrat, is the highest-profile elected official to have done so.) Republican presidential candidates who have offered support for gay rights in the past - like Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney - are now suspiciously silent on the issue, and even Democrats rarely go further than to express support for civil unions.

As it now stands, Massachusetts is the only state in the union that allows same-sex weddings - and it does so only because of a 2003 court ruling, not legislation.

Of course, just because a bill has Spitzer's support doesn't mean it's destined for the law books. Even he acknowledges that it probabaly won't be passed along with the rest of his immediate legislative priorities, and neither the state assemly speaker or the state senate's majority leader has expressed support for gay marriage in the past.

But a Spitzer endorsement - a nod from a popular governor in a populous state - carries lots of symbolic importance. If nothing else, he might prove that endorsing gay marriage is no longer the quickest route to an early retirement: Spitzer backed gay marriage on the campaign trail in 2006, and still won 70% of the vote.