The measure requires contractors that do more than $100,000 worth of business in New York City annually to provide health insurance, bereavement, and other benefits to domestic partners—if the company offers such benefits to married spouses. Similar measures have passed in San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles.

City Council member Christine Quinn, the bill’s sponsor, told the New York Times the law would have a far-reaching effect. There are thousands of companies with contracts with the city that exceed $100,000 in business, she noted. They include many large, nationwide firms and monopolies with an international reach that are based elsewhere but do business with the city.

The Republican mayor’s stance has placed him out of step with a substantial number of leaders of his party nationally. They include President George Bush and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who have come out in favor of civil rights for same-sex couples adopted on the state level.

The November 8 ruling was the latest round in a losing battle by the mayor. First, Bloomberg vetoed the bill after it passed in the city council last June. Then, after his veto was overridden by a city council vote of 41-4, he obtained an injunction to prevent the law from being enforced. Bloomberg announced he plans to appeal the latest ruling, saying the measure would be bad for business and that city money should not be used “to advance social issues.”

As part of their efforts to turn the Republican Party into a majority party, prominent Republican figures have taken positions in favor of equal rights for gays and lesbians (even while opposing same-sex marriage), oppressed nationalities, and women. These positions are more in line with predominating views in bourgeois public opinion, which reflect gains by previous working-class struggles like the civil rights movement. These stances have drawn the ire of the Republican right wing, which has pressed its case for a “culture war” against such social gains.

“I don’t think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that’s what a state chooses to do,” said Bush in a pre-election interview on ABC TV’s “Good Morning America” October 26.

When interviewer Charles Gibson reminded Bush that “the Republican platform opposes it,” Bush replied, “Well, I don’t. I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights.”

At the same time, the Bush administration has also used demagogic maneuvers to appease the right wing of the Republican Party and the conservative-minded voters who constitute an important part of the party’s electoral base. Bush’s position in calling for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage this year was an example of this tactic. Bush grandstanded for a reactionary proposal he knew had virtually no chance of success—because a two-thirds majority vote in Congress is required for such an amendment, as well as its adoption by three-quarters of the 50 state legislatures—in order to score points with his rightist supporters.

But on the whole, the Bush administration has distanced itself from the “culture war” approach of the ultraright on this and other social issues. On domestic policy Bush has focused, like his predecessor Clinton, on advancing the main ruling-class offensive to shore up the bosses’ declining profit rates: cutting workers’ real wages, worsening working conditions, and undermining social programs—like his proposals to “reform” Social Security. But his administration has not carried out sweeping assaults on rights won on social questions like affirmative action. Bush is not the only prominent Republican to take this approach.

In a November 16 interview on CNN TV’s “Larry King Live,” California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reiterated his support for equal rights for gay couples. When asked what he thought about gay marriage, Schwarzenegger told King he agreed with California state law. He described it as everyone having “equal rights and the same rights as a married couple…anything that makes the relationship, you know, strong and also gives them the same rights that a married couple has.”

When King asked if the governor’s views on social issues put him “out of step with your party,” the Austrian-born actor-cum-politician replied, “Well, that is okay to be on the left side of that party because the party is very—has a wide range. All the way from the right, to all the way to the center, to the left. This is what I am—socially more moderate, but I am very conservative when it comes to fiscal policies.”

It appears that New York mayor Bloomberg is also beginning to sense the direction in which the political winds are blowing.

Following the legal defeat, Bloomberg announced that the city’s pension fund boards will treat city employees in same-sex relationships the same way as those in traditional marriages. Those eligible would be gay couples that received marriage licenses or official civil union status in Massachusetts, Vermont, and several Canadian provinces, among other places.

“All of our city employees deserve to be treated equally regardless of their sexual orientation,” Bloomberg told New York Newsday November 17. The New York mayor “has said that he goes ‘back-and-forth’ on whether same-sex marriages should be allowed, but believes that civil unions for homosexuals should confer the same legal rights as marriage,” the daily reported.

Newsday also noted that “the mayor’s announcement comes as he is locked in a legal battle with the City Council over its attempt to grant benefits to the same-sex spouses of employees of companies that do business with the city.”  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home