NY Gov. Introduces Gay Marriage Bill

MSNBC - NEW YORK - Gov. David Paterson introduced a bill Thursday to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, comparing the effort to the fight for the abolition of slavery.

Paterson, whose job approval rating has plunged below 30 percent, is making a political gamble that he can ride the momentum of other states that have recently allowed the practice, and it's unclear how the legislation will play in New York.

The proposal is the same bill the Democratic-controlled state Assembly passed in 2007 before it died in the Senate, where the Republican majority kept it from going to a vote. Democrats now control the Senate, but opponents are vowing to make sure this one fails, as well.

A political gamble in a liberal state?

30 Men Lift Bus To Save Baby

NEW YORK (AFP) - About 30 men lifted a schoolbus to save a pregnant woman struck by the bus, enabling the baby to be born before the woman died of her injuries, the New York Post said Friday.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg paid tribute to the victim, Donnette Sanz, 33, a traffic cop who was off duty when she was hit Thursday by the bus in the city's Bronx section.

"It is a terrible poignancy that Donnette's son's birthday will now coincide with the day his mother died. She gave her life in service to our city," the mayor said.

"A superhuman effort by 30 strangers who lifted the vehicle off her body miraculously saved her baby before she died," the New York Post said.

"We did not really communicate, we all just started lifting. We lifted it up and someone pulled her out," Madalina Diaz, 42, told the paper.

The woman, six months pregnant, was rushed to the hospital, where the baby was born by caesarian section a few minutes before she died. - Yahoo! News

Very touching.

Bishop Owns NY Governnor

Calling him "just plain wrong," Bishop William Murphy has blasted Gov. David A. Paterson for ordering state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.

In a column in The Long Island Catholic, Murphy suggested the governor was "subverting the democratic process" because he issued the order without consulting the state Senate or Assembly, or the public in general.

"Sexual intimacy between persons of the same sex does not pass muster," Murphy wrote in the newspaper of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Homosexual relationships "do not serve the common good. They cannot do so because they contradict biological teleology and the natural law." - Newsday

You tell 'em, Bishop.

Myammar update

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari gave an upbeat report on Tuesday on his recent trip to promote democracy in Myanmar but Western ambassadors voiced doubts about the junta's will to cooperate with him.

Gambari told the U.N. Security Council that the situation was "qualitatively different" from a few weeks ago, and that he believed the junta could respond to the pressure for change. He noted that Suu Kyi had been allowed to issue a statement for the first time in four years and to meet members of her party. However, British Ambassador John Sawers warned that without sustained international pressure on the junta, signs of progress could be "a false dawn." U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad, along with Gambari, urge the junta to release Suu Kyi and other detainees.

I'm back!

There was a change of plan, and we left the New York City area at 11 today, and got here at 3. I'm back in my Wakefield home, listening to the Wakefield Étudiant Radio Show. You should do the same.

Quick update...

I didn't mention it on this site, only to some of my friends, but I'm out of town at the moment. Today I went to a wonderful wedding ceremony in New York City. I've been staying with my Aunt Emily in Jersey. Anyway, I'll be back in Wakefield around midnight on Sunday.