Deciding vote on marriage equality in NY asks Twitter how he should vote.

[LLStarks]

http://twitter.com/#!/ball4ny/status/81912792394899456

"Opening up the discussion! So, if you were me, how would you vote on gay marriage? Yes or No?"

- State Senator Greg Ball (R)

[TheWraith]

1. I can save you the suspense, Ball is going to vote no.

He's been demanding extra concessions in the bill to allow religious institutions to not honor gay marriages, and basically trying to play as being reasonable while still voting no and handing his base raw meat.

[aquart]

3. Religion is conservative. It changes last and reluctantly.

It is full legal rights and the word MARRIAGE that matters, not a confrontation with the Pope or ultra-orthodox rabbi.

The religious institutions won't join in until gay marriage is so ordinary that people look at the churches as quaintly outdated and even passe when it comes to important rituals.

Doing anything to enforce religious participation could get the entire law rendered unconstitutional by our current Supreme Court.

[TheWraith]

5. He's not actually in it for religious exemptions. They're already there.

He's just creating an excuse to vote against the bill. Oh, we might get his vote, if we loaded it with so many legal loopholes for religious folks to ignore gay marriages that it was literally only the word marriage and not the rights.

[KittyWampus]

12. Again, who cares if the Fundie christians down the street don't. It's whether the STATE does

and the couple receive all due legal benefits.

[Unvanguard]

13. That's a nice political line, and I wouldn't say it's untruthful

but it evades the point the Republicans are making.

The major complaint about the exemptions in the bill (see, e.g., here) is that they are too vague: they say that no religious organization will be "required" to participate in same-sex marriages, and provide that a refusal to do so shall not be a civil cause of action, but they don't clearly prevent the government from enacting other kinds of penalties for refusal, and may not be broad enough to in fact cover all the religious non-profits Ball and his allies think should be covered.

I think the bill is fine as-is. I think the religious exemptions are probably already too broad (though they track existing NY law), I'd be happiest if governments did have more flexibility not to deal with discriminatory religious organizations, and I think the vast majority of so-called "conflicts" between same-sex marriage and religious freedom have been grossly distorted by anti-gay campaigners (including the NJ example Ball cites in the above link.) But it's quite possible that some Republican senators are either sincerely committed to seeing the bill get stronger religious exemptions or sincerely committed to protecting their careers by being able to say that they only voted for same-sex marriage after personally fighting for protections for religious organizations.

It is unlikely that such religious exemptions would have a substantial effect on the vast majority of same-sex couples in New York. The reference point for the senators seems to be New Hampshire's same-sex marriage law, and I'm not aware of any problems there with its religious exemptions language. The most important marriage right concerning non-government institutions is spousal coverage on health insurance, and except for the small number of lesbian and gay people who work for homophobic religious organizations, that would be unaffected by these exemptions.

[Unvanguard]

10. Not clear at all. Cuomo says he'll work with Republican senators on this.

I don't know what Ball will do, the exemptions he's been urging sound too broad to include in the bill, but it's quite possible he'll use any significant concession from Cuomo on this issue as an opportunity to vote "yes."

It's also possible he'll hold out until he gets his way across the board, which means some other Republican will be the 32nd vote (maybe Lanza) and Ball will be irrelevant.

[KittyWampus]

11. Why should any church be forced to marry/acknowledge a marriage that body doesn't recognize?

Sounds completely reasonable to me.

The ONLY thing that counts here, regarding the Law, is Civil Marriage.

[TheWraith]

14. They aren't NOW, even with straight people. And there's already concessions in the bill.

What Ball is doing is showboating.

[aquart]

2. Well, here's my tweet.

aquart

@ball4ny Yes. Vote yes for all of us in the gift industry. And wedding industry. For vitality and joy. Vote yes for JUSTICE.

[Tx4obama]

4. Here's my tweet

Tx4Obama

@ball4ny Dear Senator Ball, please vote YES. ALL Americans should have equal rights in the USA. #lgbt #NY #p2 #gop

[aquart]

8. Argh! I forgot hashtags!

[sabrina 1]

6. Sent him a tweet.

'Vote 'yes'. Taxation without representation is not a Conservative value. Do the right thing.'

[LLStarks]

7. popular hash tags are #ny4m and #marriageequality /nt/

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

9. Done! He's my state Sen.