Bloomberg on Marriage

Mayor Bloomberg in New York has stepped it up.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, declaring that “near-equality is no equality” for gay couples, delivered an uncharacteristically forceful and sweeping speech on Thursday in which he called on New York to “lead the American journey forward” by legalizing same-sex marriage this year.

Directly addressing an issue that is roiling the State Legislature in the final weeks of its annual session, Mr. Bloomberg said that the state’s inaction on same-sex marriage was incompatible with its long history of promoting freedom and tolerance. He invoked the riot at the Stonewall Inn in the West Village almost 42 years ago, widely viewed as the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement, as an example of the role that New Yorkers can play in shaping history.

“We are the freest city in the freest country in the world — but freedom is not frozen in time,” he told a crowd of about 200 at the Cooper Union in downtown Manhattan.

The article goes on to point out that Bloomberg is a major campaign donor to the Republicans in the state house in Albany.