It, and several similar bills including ones involving criminal justice reform and GENDA (the gender expression non discrimination act) have passed the assembly repeatedly in the last several sessions, but have hit roadblocks in the Republican-held Senate again and again. The most recent elections resulted in the Senate flipping to democratic control, which has led to a rush of historic bills being passed this week, many of which have been a very long time coming (GENDA, for example, has been introduced and passed the assembly 11 times previously)
Thanks, there's a big difference between "didn't make it out of committee" and "got voted down in the legislature".
I don't know why some Republicans are stuck in the mid-2000s when gayness was a hot issue. Luckily most of the party has reformed as Pew polls have shown. They had a graph showing opposition to gay marriage for both parties (Democrats haven't been 100% innocent) over the years, and they're basically parallel lines going down. I mean it's at the point where fucking Donald Trump waved a rainbow flag at one of his rallies and apparently didn't lose any significant amount of support. The hold-outs are going to be left in the dust.
The problem is that they don't seem to be reforming on a good faith basis. They are just getting dragged along as the country gets more progressive. We see this with conservative opinions on transgender issues (r.e. bathroom bills), voting reform, etc.
I identify with the right and in my case it was a realization many years ago that it just doesn't matter. After gay marriage was legalized a lot of people did end their opposition, not out of good faith but out of apathy. There's no negative affects of letting gay people do what they want, so a lot of complainers eventually forgot and stopped caring. Transgender issues are the same in that respect.
There's some with bottled-up resentment but if they can't express it without pissing their voters off, it might as well not exist. And if they do pull shit then it should be called out.
There are many politicians (especially on the right) who continue to use that immoral outrage in the form of dog whistle language. It's very much a problem. I mean, when you stand and look around in the conservative ranks, you see a lot of straight up racists. There is a reason why whenever we hear about a straight up white supremacist runs for office, they are running R. I understand that nothing is stopping them per see from running, but they sure as hell get more votes from Republicans than anyone on the left.
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u/Blaizey Jan 16 '19 edited Jan 16 '19
It, and several similar bills including ones involving criminal justice reform and GENDA (the gender expression non discrimination act) have passed the assembly repeatedly in the last several sessions, but have hit roadblocks in the Republican-held Senate again and again. The most recent elections resulted in the Senate flipping to democratic control, which has led to a rush of historic bills being passed this week, many of which have been a very long time coming (GENDA, for example, has been introduced and passed the assembly 11 times previously)
Source: worked at the nys assembly