Milford A. Decker of Utica, the president of Pride Among the Mokawk, argues that marriage equality isn’t just fair and right, it is also good politics, in a letter to the Syracuse Post-Standard.

We pay taxes, are good neighbors, co-workers, parents, church members and voters. We want the same things other citizens strive for: to be productive; seek loving, committed relationships; and to be full members of a society that values all of its diverse members.

States that have experimented with civil unions have found them lacking, creating a “caste system” of sub-citizens who are not equal. These distinctions caused a nightmare of bureaucratic paperwork, unnecessary if all had equal access to civil marriage.

If you believe in limited government and personal freedoms–true, conservative values–then it makes sense to back marriage rights for all couples!

The New York State Bar Association refined its position on recognizing same-sex couples to support marriage as the only viable way to treat such couples equally.

Now, having seen how couples in other states have been denied equal rights under domestic partnerships and civil unions, the group’s House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly in a voice vote of about 150 delegates to back marriage as the only equitable solution, said association president Michael E. Getnick. The delegates represent members in the state’s 13 judicial districts.

While civil unions or domestic partnerships grant many of the rights of marriage, only marriage equality can fully treat all couples the same.

Forbes does the math and breaks down the economic stimulus that would come from making marriage equality the law of the land: and it is big!

As of September 2008, 52% of all same-sex couples living in Massachusetts were married; overall, the institute says, in the states that provide legal recognition, “more than 40%” of same-sex couples married, entered a civil union or otherwise have registered their relationships. On average, those couples spent 34% of what straight couples spent on their weddings. To estimate the financial impact of gay weddings were they legalized nationally, we multiplied the number of same-sex weddings by 34% of the amount straight couples would spend on such items as engagement rings, banquet halls, wedding dresses and honeymoons. Add it all up, and it comes to $9.5 billion.

Now, that money is going to states like Connecticut and Massachusetts, which have legalized gay and lesbian marriages–but it could come to New York.

Of course, the financial impacts of the wedding pales in comparison to the financial security that comes from marriage to benefit the couples–and in these economic times, no couple should be denied the financial security which comes from having their relationship recognized by the State.

In California, gay and lesbian couples are learning that even when an alternative purports to offer all the rights of marriage, the word ‘marriage’ itself has a substantive meaning.

California’s domestic partnership law already confers most of the same legal rights on gay couples as heterosexual married people, said professor Lawrence Levine of the McGeorge School of Law. Still, he said, marriage opens doors that domestic partnership does not.

“There is a shared understanding of what the word ‘marriage’ means in our culture,” said Levine. “There is a huge psychic difference between that word and the phrase ‘domestic partnership.’ ”

Even though the latter has legal heft in California, many people are unfamiliar with it, and as a result domestic partners may be denied their rights, Levine said.

Domestic partnerships aren’t even an alternative in New York.  If a couple wishes to marry, they must travel to Canada, Connecticut, Massachusets, Vermont, Iowa or Maine.

For the second time in two years, the New York Assembly passed marriage equality, this time by an even wider, bi-partisan margin. Several Assemblymembers explained why they changed their minds to support the freedom to marry for all New Yorkers.

“There’s that little voice inside of you that tells you when you’ve done something right, and when you’ve done something wrong,” said Fred W. Thiele Jr., who represents the Hamptons. “That vote just never felt right to me. That little voice kept gnawing away at me.” Mr. Thiele’s district overlaps with the Senate district of Kenneth P. LaValle, whom gay rights advocates consider to be among the half-dozen or so Republicans open to considering a yes vote.

Janet L. Duprey, a Republican whose district along the Canadian border in the North Country overlaps with the Senate district of Elizabeth Little, another Republican who gay rights supporters believe is within reach, said a lesbian couple who live on her street helped change her mind.

“They are asking only for equal protection under the law,” Ms. Duprey said. “They deserve no less than to have the same rights and ability to share their love.”

Bob Reilly, a Democratic assemblyman whose district includes parts of Saratoga and Albany Counties, apologized to colleagues for voting no in 2007 before casting a yes vote on Tuesday.

You can make a difference by sharing your personal stories about what marriage means to you!