Marriage equality in the Empire State is still in limbo. We still do not know when/if the bill will come to a vote. What we do know is that one of the main holdouts, Senator Gregg Ball, who has long been (at least publicly) on the fence, has come out as a "No" vote on marriage equality. This decision, as he says, comes because there were certain religious exemptions that were not included in the bill. Even though I'm sure many hoped that he would be the one to tip the balance in the New York State Senate, I am hearing that no one is particularly surprised by this outcome.
That is one thing. However, what has happened in less than a day after this decision was made public is quite another. It is being reported that Senator Ball is blocking and deleting messages on Twitter (maybe elsewhere as well) who have been supporting marriage equality. Were we merely talking about someone just voting against marriage equality, that would be bad enough. However, this censorship shows a very distasteful attitude that the Senator has. He is being taking to task by his constituents (and others) which is something that all elected officials must do. It's a very "if you can't stand the heat..." type of situation. If he can not take the criticism of the way he will vote, then perhaps he needs to re-evaluate the way he intends to vote...or maybe he should resign if can't take the rigors of the job.
In response to this, a FaceBook group was started to voice, at the very least, displeasure in the actions of Senator Ball.
No comments:
Post a Comment