For the first time ever, a majority of New Yorkers want to see the Big Apple allow legal marriages for same-sex couples.
A poll finds growing support for gay marriage in New York as a bill languishing in the state Senate is scheduled for a special session.
The Quinnipiac University poll finds 51 percent of New Yorkers support the legalization of same-sex marriage. Forty-one percent oppose it.
“It’s the slimmest of majorities, but for the first time in a Quinnipiac University poll of New York State, same-sex marriage is ahead,” Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement.
In May, a similar poll showed voters were split on the issue 46 percent to 46 percent. A month earlier, only 41 percent of New Yorkers were in favor of legalizing gay marriage.
A Siena College poll released Monday supports the shifting trend, finding that 50 percent of New Yorkers support gay marriage.
Gov. David Paterson says he will compel the Senate to consider final legislative approval of the bill in a special session that he says will begin Tuesday, but earlier this week, he did not say he would put the bill on the agenda.
“Supporters have worked hard in the last six weeks, moving the needle from dead even to slightly ahead," Carroll said. "Who knows how far they can move that needle in the next six weeks if the State Legislature doesn’t act?”
The Assembly already passed the bill. Paterson says he will sign it into law if the Senate passes it.
The poll questioned 2,477 voters from June 16 to Sunday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 points.
