...to get marriage equality, asks the Village Voice.

If you answered "Ruben Diaz", you'd be half right, but the Pentecostral zealot is only part of a larger problem that the Voice sums up simply as chickenshit Democrats.

Last week, Governor Paterson called lawmakers to a special session to deal with the state's hemorrhaging budget, but also to vote on gay marriage. Democratic senators punted.

"I'm still stinging from the disrespect we received," says Cathy Marino-Thomas, president of Marriage Equality New York. She had spent all of last Tuesday in the Senate Gallery and outside Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson's office, only to be ignored: "Our folks were out there all day, pouring their hearts out, begging for a vote, pleading for a vote—or, at least, an answer on whether or not there was even going to be a vote, and no one even addressed them!"

New York's Democrats take quite a bit for granted when it comes to who will support them and why. They won their slender majority in the Senate in 2008 despite the massive outflow of resources into the coffers and walklists of the Obama campaign. Then they pissed that majority away in a coup that originated in their own caucus and made the state a national punchline. And now, we're on the verge of what could be a bitter fight for the gubernatorial nomination in 2010. None of that bodes well for anyone trying to expand that Democratic majority in the Senate, certainly not for the foundation of any such effort, raising money. "Please, give, we promise we won't fuck it up this time around". Good luck with that, especially when it comes to getting all those dollars from LGBT donors. One of the more difficult political tasks is to be put to shame by the New York State Assembly, but the Senate has managed just that, trailing behind the Assembly 0-2 on marriage equality.

New York Democrats - and by that I don't mean most of the incumbents serving, if that's even the right term, in the legislature, but the party activists, grassroots leaders, volunteers - have to realize that the national netroots motto, More and Better Democrats, applies in spades to our state. What we do with that realization, time will tell, but I'd suggest time is running out for those who think business as usual will run on forever like Niagara Falls.