Lawmakers on Thursday afternoon plowed through votes on a host of measures, but the State Senate had not yet reached a decision about whether to vote on same-sex marriage.
Gay-rights advocates remained hopeful that the same-sex marriage bill, which had been approved by the State Assembly and supported by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, would win passage before lawmakers ended their annual session. And Senate Republicans pledged to decide late on Thursday whether to allow a vote after meeting for what the lawmakers said would be their first substantive discussion of the legislation in several days.
But the number of senators who had voiced support for the measure — 31 out of 62, or one short of a majority — had not changed in over a week, and negotiations over protections for religious institutions that oppose same-sex marriage had yielded no final agreement between Republicans and Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, raising the prospect that the Legislature could adjourn without addressing the controversial measure.
“We’re not going to work under time constraints,” Dean G. Skelos, the Republican Senate leader and an opponent of same-sex marriage, said Thursday. “We’ll do it when the conference is ready.”
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Complete article at NY Times : http://nyti.ms/kClQwK
