Way back in 1970, the whole nation was watching our state legislature. A bill that would make New York the second state to legalize abortion had passed the all-male Senate and made its way to the Assembly. The vote, which had looked tight, got tighter when some of the expected "yes" votes got up and said they just couldn't do it -- that their Catholic constituents would never forgive them.
When the vote came, it appeared that legalized abortion had lost on a tie. Then George Michaels, a Democrat from a conservative upstate district, got up and switched his vote.
"I realize I am terminating my political career," he said in a quavering voice.
He was right. In the real world, voters only reward a lawmaker for following his conscience when his conscience happens to agree with theirs.
Is it conceivable that anyone would make that kind of sacrifice today? These days in Albany, political courage means agreeing to support your party's preferred special interests on only 95 percent of their agenda.
We didn't get any hints this week, since the 38-24 defeat of a gay marriage bill in the Senate didn't invite any heroics. As soon as the first few senators had cast their votes, it was clear that the bill was going down. By the time the clerk began to call the people whose names began with "B," anyone who was teetering on the fence had abandoned ship.
If the vote had been secret, would the result have been different? Possibly. The advocates who had been working on legalizing gay marriage for so long believed they were close. There were a couple dozen sure votes and some other senators who had privately promised to go their way. Then they hoped that others who had expressed private sympathy for the cause without ever making a commitment would pull a George Michaels and give them a victory.
Instead they got a terrible setback for the cause nationwide. The year began with advocates envisioning an East Coast sweep that would re-inspire gay marriage supporters in the West and Midwest.
Now with New York following the defeat in the Maine referendum, there's nothing but a blame game that appears to be building between the advocates who lobbied the bill and the chief
Senate sponsor, Tom Duane of Manhattan.
Duane, the only openly gay member of the Senate, gave his all. His fellow Senate reformers said he was obsessed with the issue, almost to the exclusion of everything else.
"I'm angry. I'm disappointed. I am let down. I'm betrayed. But I'm not going away," Duane said later.
One or more senators who had privately promised to vote for the bill did backtrack. But it's hard to believe that Duane actually had commitments from more than a half dozen people who turned on him at the last minute.
Here's my guess. The culture of Albany betrayed the gay marriage advocates. In the New York legislature, everything that comes up for a vote wins. If there isn't enough support for sure, the leadership doesn't bring the bill to the floor. There's no such thing as a surprise, as in someone's mind being changed by an argument on the floor.
The advocates may have believed that if the extraordinary happened, and senators found themselves unmoored and challenged to vote their consciences for the first time, they'd rise to the occasion.
They didn't. If arguments could change minds in the Senate, people on the fence would have been moved by colleagues like Ruth Hassell-Thompson of the Bronx, who told the chamber about her gay brother who moved to Europe when his family rejected his sexuality. "He never could settle, so he died in the South of France," she said.
Or Diane Savino of Staten Island, who talked about the importance of commitment in marriage, and her admiration for the steady devotion of gay couples like Duane and his partner.
But there actually was no debate. Except for Reuben Diaz of the Bronx, who is famous for his opposition to gay marriage, the "no" votes sat in silence. Until it was time to be counted.