After Supreme Court ruling, GOP senators in NY feel validated

ALBANY – Same-sex marriage is now the law of the land, but first it was law in New York.

After the Supreme Court ruling June 26 to legalize same-sex marriage in the U.S., the four Republican senators in 2011 who voted to make it the law in New York said they feel proud of the federal decision.

“For me, it certainly was, if not a vindication, than a validation,” said former Sen. Stephen Saland, R-Poughkeepsie. “I honestly thought that same-sex marriage was an inevitability, but I never expected it to occur nationally as quickly as it has.”

When the state Senate legalized same-sex marriage in a late-night, suspenseful vote on June 24, 2011, New York became the largest state in the nation to do so — doubling the number of people in the country who could have access to same-sex marriages.

It was a pivotal turn in the fight by gay-rights groups to win marriage equality.

“With this decision that applies to every state in the land, for me personally, it makes me feel good that there should no longer be that much of a struggle” for gay couples, former Sen. James Alesi, R-Perinton, Monroe County said. “Getting it to the Supreme Court was the result of that struggle.”

The battle over same-sex marriage was divisive as any vote in recent times in New York, and the outcome was uncertain until minutes before the vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.

While the Democrat-led Assembly repeatedly passed the measure, Republicans, along with some Democrats, voted it down in the Senate in 2009.

But with Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his first year in office in 2011, the Democratic governor was able to win over all Democrats and four Republicans in the 62-seat chamber. The measure passed 33-29.

The vote helped catapult same-sex marriage into the national debate, Cuomo said.

“It was beyond politics. It was about equality and dignity, and New York showed the way,” Cuomo said in advance of the Gay Pride Parade in New York City on June 28.

Cuomo was granted the right last month by the Legislature to perform marriages, and he officiated his first same-sex wedding prior to the parade. Cuomo praised the four Republican senators for their vote.

“They are heroes in public service because they voted their conscience; they didn’t succumb to the fear,” Cuomo said.

They each paid a political price. All four of them are now out of office.

Saland and Sen. Roy McDonald, R-Saratoga, narrowly lost re-election in 2012. Alesi choose not to run in 2012 amid a series of political troubles. Sen. Mark Grisanti, R-Buffalo, won re-election in 2012, but lost last year.

Saland and McDonald said they are enjoying retirement and spending time with their grandchildren. They said they have no regrets about their vote, even though they were voted out of office mainly because of it.

“You do what you think is right, and the people whether they agree with you not, I hope they appreciate the fact that I’m doing it to protect everybody’s rights and give everybody freedom,” McDonald said.

McDonald said he was always considered a conservative, but he voted how he felt on the issue: “I feel I evolved in my own personal life as a father and a grandfather. I don’t want to make life tough for good people.”

In 2013, Cuomo appointed Alesi to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board, which comes with a $90,800 a year salary. In April, Cuomo tapped Grisanti as a judge for the state Court of Claims, which comes with a $174,000 salary.

“I never looked back as far as that decision was,” Grisanti said of the vote. “So I was happy to see the Supreme Court ruled it the way they did.”

Jason McGuire, executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a religious group based in Spencerport, Monroe County, said the same-sex marriage vote had an impact nationally. But he said the defeat of the lawmakers showed that the general public had opposed the measure at the time.

“Those of us that are social conservatives here feel like we’ve had some vindication, as well, due to the fact that the senators are not returning to Albany,” McGuire said.

Saland said he would still vote the same way; it ended his 32-year career as a state lawmaker in the Hudson Valley. Saland was considered the critical 32nd vote needed for the bill to be approved in the Senate.

“If you told me today that I would have the opportunity to cast the vote a second time under the same circumstances and told me the outcome would be that I would be defeated in my re-election, I would have done the very same thing,” Saland said.

“It was right then. It is right now.”

Joseph Spector:JSPECTOR@Gannett.com; Twitter: @gannettalbany