Tony Soprano weighs in (sort of) on the NYS marriage-equality battle

On last night's show, Anderson Cooper talked to Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson and CNN legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin.

"I don't give too much of a shit what people do behind closed doors with, uh, consentin' adults. Although [wagging finger at DR. MELFI] don't forget, I'm a strict Catholic. I agree with that Senator Sanatorium, says if we let this stuff go too far, pretty soon we'll be fuckin' dogs. . . .

"What the fuck, I suppose somethin' inside me says, 'God bless, a salut', who gives a shit?'"

-- Tony Soprano, to Dr. Melfi, in Episode 6,
"Live Free or Die," from Season 6 of The Sopranos

by Ken

In case you were wondering, even though the New York State Legislature's session has officially been over for days, negotiations -- principally featuring the players who used to be known as Albany's "three men in a room," the governor, the Senate majority leader, and the Assembly speaker -- are continuing to hammer out agreements on rent-regulation renewal and a property-tax recap, and in there amidst the horse trading is the issue of whether Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos will allow the marriage-equality bill approved by the Assembly to come to the floor for a vote. (Unless he does, it appears that we'll never know whether the pro-equality forces have enough votes to pass it.)

In case you missed it, the lowest-life-form National Organization for Marriage, the direst enemy and sane and decent conception of marriage could ever imagine, pulled a stunt yesterday that seems outlandish even by its lower-than-low standards, putting out a press release claiming "victory" in the campaign against marriage equality, a claim that was an out-and-out fabrication. Oh, it could just be that they're morons, but it seems pretty clear that at a time when no actual news was emerging from behind those closed doors, the NOM morons were trying to manufacture a bogus reality-on-the-ground that might actually influence the real, or rather realish, reality in Albany. The bogus NOM story was gleefully picked up by National Review Online, which then had to pull it for revamping.

I want to get to some striking and unusually personal comments by that outstanding reporter Paul Schindler in a piece today for Gay City News (of which he's the editor in chief), but I've been sidetracked -- and I hope you'll see the connection -- by a dazzlng scene from
On its "On Demand" channel HBO has been rerunning Season 6 of The Sopranos, episodes I've probably seen less frequently than any of the earlier seasons' -- probably just once each. In fact, there was one early episode, in the arc of hallucinations as Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) fights for life from the gunshot wound inflicted by his Alzheimer's-afflicted Uncle Junior, from which I remembered hardly anything, though enough to know that I must have seen it.

To my delight I'm finding that these episodes look if anything even better than they did originally, with some distance in time and of course knowledge of how events play out. The precision of detail is kind of breathtaking -- as with the hilarious phone conversation between Tony and the road-construction worker who picks up the ringing cell phone that we realize is the very phone the flying-the-coop captain Vito Spatafore (Joseph R. Gannascoli) threw out his car window in his flight to New Hampshire, one of the series' most memorable subplots.

I expect I'll want to write more about the experience of re-viewing Season 6, but for now I'm stunned and delighted by this therapy session with Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) in which Tony grapples with the reports that Vito is gay. The writing seems to me just amazing in its depiction of the detritus stored up in Tony's head, realted and not-so-related to the subject of homosexuality, and of course the way everything turns out to be about him personally. (The script for "Live Free or Die" is credited to series creator David Chase and three Sopranos stalwarts: executive producer Terence Winter, more recently the creator of HBO's terrific Boardwalk Empire, now in production on its second season, and the wife-and-husband writing team of Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, more recently creators of CBS's Blue Bloods, recently renewed for its second season.) I did this quick -- well, quickish -- transcript of the whole scene, which begins just as you read here.

DR. MELFI: You didn't know he was gay?
TONY: Actually, I had him pegged the whole time, but --
DR. MELFI: He a close friend?
TONY: Not only that, he's one of my most valuable guys. He's ambitious, he's focused. When I was in the hospital, he helped Carmela tremendously when we were strapped.
DR. MELFI: You've implied you have millions of dollars. Your hospital stay was actually that costly?
TONY: [Mutters bits of words, then -- ] Huh? [Pause] Is that the issue?
DR. MELFI: You tell me, what is the issue?
TONY: He's a fa-ag! [Holds hands out questioningly] Now what am I supposed to do?
DR. MELFI: About what?
TONY: I know what. [Sarcastically] They're born that way. It's not their fault. Well, frankly I think they go about in pity for themselves.
DR. MELFI: I don't think they see it as a fault.
TONY: In your circle I'm sure you've got all kinds of, uh, gays and, uh, trans-whatevers, of all stripes, but not where I come from.
DR. MELFI: You personally, how do you feel about homosexuality?
TONY: I find it disgustin'. Men kissin' men, holdin' hands in the street. Every fuckin' TV show now, they rub your nose in it. Although that . . . the lesbian thing with the, uh, Jennifer Beals -- it's not bad. She a dyke in real life? [DR. MELFI gesticulates that she has no answer.] I don't give too much of a shit what people do behind closed doors with, uh, consentin' adults. Although [wags finger] don't forget, I'm a strict Catholic. I agree with that Senator Sanatorium, says if we let this stuff go too far, pretty soon we'll be fuckin' dogs.
DR. MELFI: I hear a lot of ambivalence.
TONY: This guy that got outed, look, the guys that work for me are askin' for head. His head. What the fuck? You know, him and me, we're in the construction business. Now some of these union old-timers, the contractors, they're not gonna wanna be seen with him, and I'm talkin' huge deals, major fuckin' dollars.
DR. MELFI: A lot of your circle must have done jail time. They can't be strangers to male-male sexual contact.
TONY: You get a pass for that.
DR. MELFI: Well, that's nice.
TONY: Well, Whaddaya gonna do? There's no women there. You're there, uh, five, ten years. [Pause] Just for the record, my incarceration was, uh, very short-term, so I never had any need for any anal, you know --
DR. MELFI: So this fellow who's been outed, what's he saying?
TONY: You think I'm lyin', don't you? About when I was in jail.
DR. MELFI: I've given you no indication I think you're lying.
TONY: [Long pause, as TONY shuffles in his chair] What the fuck, I suppose somethin' inside me says, "God bless, a salut', who gives a shit?" I mean, I had a second chance, why shouldn't he?
DR. MELFI: Part of your new outlook?
TONY: Maybe.
DR. MELFI: I salute it then.
TONY: Tall fuckin' order, I can tell you that.
DR. MELFI: How so?
TONY: You can talk about every day bein' a gift, and stop for the smell of the roses, but regular life's got a way of pickin' away at it. Your house, the shit you own, it drags you down. Your kids, what they want, one bad idea after another. Just workin' a cell-phone menu's enough to make you wanna scream.

NOW TO THAT PIECE OF PAUL SCHINDLER'S

Paul's Gay City News piece this morning, called "Anxiety, Great Expectations & Weariness, Too, begins like so:

For the past ten days, like many gay and lesbian New Yorkers, those of us here at Gay City News have watched the unfolding events in Albany with rapt attention and no small amount of anxiety.

June 13 and 14 were two of the most spellbinding days I have spent as a journalist covering gay politics. After a concerted six-month campaign by leading professional advocates, grassroots activists, and the governor of this state, we arrived at a moment where four of the remaining six State Senate votes we needed to enact marriage equality –– a deficit that had not budged since last November’s elections –– materialized in a single press conference.

The following day we picked up another vote.

We were just one short of our goal.

And we’ve stayed in that place for the eight days that followed. Each morning, we’ve wondered where the 32nd –– and winning –– vote would come from and whether the Republicans who run the Senate’s agenda and bill flow would allow a measure most of their members oppose to see the light of day.

It is clear, as of this writing, that we will not hear about any more Republican supporters of marriage equality until we learn whether the majority is willing to allow a vote. James Alesi of Rochester and Roy McDonald of Troy either bucked their party leadership in announcing their support before the conference considered the matter or they were allowed to go public because their votes alone would not put the issue over the top.

The GOP was unwilling to allow a marriage vote to move forward until they had extracted as much as they could in their negotiations with the Assembly Democrats and Governor Andrew Cuomo on other important issues, such as a property tax cap and renewal of the New York City rent stabilization law.

In and of itself, that strategy is hard to criticize. Politics is about negotiation, horse-trading, and compromise.

But in their protracted stalling on marriage, they gave credence to a grab-bag of wild fears, some half-truths at best, and other outright misrepresentations about the potential threat marriage equality poses for religious freedom: A clergy member could be sued for refusing to marry a gay or lesbian couple. Parishes and synagogues declining to rent out their halls for gay wedding receptions might lose their tax-exempt status. Catholic adoption agencies would have to abandon their mission ––that charge made in spite of the fact that adoption has nothing to do with the state’s marriage law.

Paul notes the difficult position of the Senate Republicans: under fierce pressure from the hard Right (including the implacably anti-marriage-equality state Conservative Party and the state's Catholic dioceses, who are in all-out war mode) to maintain an unyielding "no" position, on an issue where for a number of them a "no" vote too may spell political doom. Paul even allows for the possibility that a lot of the Senate Republcians' posturing may have to do with providing themselves political cover for a fight they know they're eventually going to lose.

After all, the Republicans could kill the bill outright simply by refusing to allow a floor vote. Apparently, the strong polling marriage equality enjoys statewide and the glare of so many TV lights have convinced them that denying us our vote is politically untenable.

Their dithering, it seems to me, is an acknowledgment they know they will lose. Otherwise, they would have grabbed their victory already.

And then, as I mentioned at the top, Paul gets personal.

In the meanwhile, I have to reflect on an emotion I’ve experienced separate from anxiety and anticipation. Namely, irritation.

Part of that stems, no doubt, from my great disappointment in coming out with our Gay Pride issue with this battle so close to conclusion, but not quite there.

But the larger measure of my frustration comes from the unpalatable experience of sitting and waiting day in and day out while a nearly opaque political dance unfolds that is, in fact, a referendum on my dignity as a citizen. The fact that my equality –– which according to core American values is God-given or, in more secular terms, mine by right of birth, should be in the hands of elected officials who show such cavalier disregard for basic notions of fair play and equal treatment is a truth I will never be able to accommodate myself to.

As I write these words, I remain confident that our goal is within reach. But at moments on the journey, there are bittersweet reminders of the injustice that has defined far too much of our lives.

This is an argument that would surely go over the head of Senator Sanatorium (I don't know about you, but I now find it possible to think of the Rickster as anything but Senator Sanatorium), but one that even that "strict Catholic" Tony ("Who gives a shit?") Soprano could grasp -- in his more lucid moments.


POSTSCRIPT: IN CASE YOU WERE THINKING THAT
THE NYS SENATE CAN'T GET ANYTHING DONE . . .

Our friend Phillip Anderson reports on The Albany Project that he's been "awfully busy lately with doctors and job interviews," but --

I am happy to say I am back. And just in time! The New York State Senate has FINALLY decided what our official state rock should be. WHEW!

NY State Senate passes bill naming Herkimer Diamond as official state mineral

The state Senate today passed a bill that would designate the Herkimer Diamond as the official state mineral.

Sponsored by Sen. James Seward, R-Milford, who represents Herkimer County, where the doubly-terminated quartz crystal is found, the legislation passed unanimously.

"The Empire State has a proud tradition of recognizing and trumpeting the features that make it unique. Certainly, the Herkimer Diamond is one of those rare treasures well deserving of 'official' statewide status," Seward said in a news release.

He noted that New York's Legislature has previously designated an official gemstone (garnet), fossil (sea scorpion), shell (bay scallop), bush (lilac), salt water fish (striped bass), and reptile (snapping turtle).

An identical version of the bill is pending in the Assembly.

So glad we FINALLY have a state rock! Awesome!

Marriage Equality, fracking, rent regulations...all that stuff...will just have to wait.

So you see? Our NYS Legislature at work.

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