New York Assembly passes same-sex bill

ALBANY, N.Y., May 13 (UPI) -- The New York State Assembly has approved a measure to allow same-sex marriages, shifting the fight over the bill to the state Senate, analysts said.

By a vote of 89-52, the Assembly moved late Tuesday to approve the same-sex marriage initiative, with several legislators who had rejected a similar measure in 2007 changing their votes this time, The New York Times reported.

Backers of same-sex marriage said they concentrated their lobbying efforts on Assembly members who share districts with state senators whose votes were deemed to be in play on the issue. The vote in the senate was predicted to be tight and hard-fought, the newspaper said.

"The margin of victory and the balance of where the people come from who voted for this is broadening," Daniel O'Donnell, a Democratic assemblyman from Manhattan who led the effort to gain support for the bill, told the Times. "The state is demanding that we provide equality, and that's the message here."

A statewide advertising campaign was reportedly set be launched Wednesday in support of the marriage law, with one spot said to feature a Cicero, N.Y., woman explaining she wants her lesbian daughter to be treated equally under the law.