Opponents of Governor Andrew Cuomo's
effort to legalize gay marriage in New York held a rally outside the
Statehouse on Tuesday.
More than 350 people attended the
conservative group New Yorker's Family Research Foundation latest
Mayday for Marriage! rally. The group is crisscrossing the state in
a bus tour modeled after last year's nationwide Summer for Marriage
Tour 2010 sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM),
the nation's most vociferous opponent of gay marriage.
At the tour's inaugural rally in
Elmira, Rev. Jason McGuire, the group's executive director, likened
passage of marriage equality to the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe
v. Wade.
“My generation asks the last, 'Where
were you when they tried to redefine when life began?' The next
generation will ask of ours, 'Where were you when they tried to
redefine marriage? ' What will we say to future generations?”
One of the most extreme signs seen at
Tuesday's rally warned, “LGBT Marriage KILLS.”
The
rally comes a day after Governor Andrew Cuomo released a video
message in support of the proposed legislation.
Key for passage is the Senate, where a
2009 gay marriage bill died without any Republican support.
Democratic Senator Ruben Diaz Sr., the most outspoken opponent of the
legislation in the Senate, headlined
a rally in the Bronx last week.