Marriage Equality Wins Upstate, Loses in the City

Fight Back New York claimed victory shortly after the polls closed last night for taking down anti-gay marriage Senator Bill Stachowski of Buffalo. Supporting challenger Tim Kennedy, FBNY was celebrating their second successful hit of a senator who'd voted against marriage equality, following Hiram Monserrate's defeat as he attempted to win back the seat he'd been expelled from earlier this year.

Monserrate was beaten in that race by Assemblyman Jose Peralta, and so the man convicted of dragging his girlfriend through his lobby on video tried to win Peralta's old Assembly seat. He failed to do that yesterday, losing in a primary to Francisco Moya. Jackson Heights voters can only hope that's the end of him, but Monserrate generally has a hard time taking "no" for an answer.

But the Kennedy win upstate and the Moya win in the assembly were marriage equality advocates' sole victories yesterday in the Democratic primaries. They failed to knock off Senator Shirley Huntley, who was decisively staved off a challenge from Lyyn Nunes by almost a 3:1 margin. More importantly, they couldn't touch the big fish, Reverend Senator Ruben Diaz, who trounced newcomer Charlie Ramos, 78 percent to 21 percent.

In other gay news, Harry Reid wanted Lady Gaga to be the first to know that he's finally scheduled a vote on repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" next week, in case the Republicans take back congress.