New York, NY —

Governor Paterson is calling state senators back to Albany today, and same sex marriage is on the agenda. Many observers are convinced the bill will never reach the floor this session. But WNYC’s Ailsa Chang sat down with one gay rights activist who says this is the year gay marriage will not only come to a vote in the New York senate, it’s going to pass as well.

REPORTER: Ethan Geto thinks Governor Paterson is going to get his way on this one. And he is an authority on the subject. Geto has been a gay rights activist since 1971 and has been lobbying for New York’s gay marriage bill for years. A towering six-foot-seven, he’s been an advisor to state Attorney General Robert Abrams, to the Bronx borough president, to U.S. congressmen and to city commissioners.

REPORTER: We’re at his home, watching a video of Governor’s Paterson’s speech this year to the Empire State Pride Agenda, the most prominent gay rights organization that’s been pushing the bill.

GETO: It’s so inspiring to see him, because he’s so obviously deeply, sincerely, viscerally committed to gay rights in general, gay marriage in particular.

REPORTER: But what the Governor needs is get this bill through the state senate, a body legendary for its stalemates. It blocked the bill during a party power struggle last summer, and stalled on the gay marriage bill again last week. After last Tuesday’s unproductive “extraordinary session,” Majority Conference Leader John Sampson vowed gay marriage will come up for a vote by the end of the year. And Geto believes the Democrats will deliver on that – if they know what’s good for them.

GETO: I said if they don’t make a commitment to call up this bill, there will be hell to pay, and the Democrats would suffer tremendously by the disaffection of gay leaders, gay activists and gay donors.

REPORTER: Geto says the gay community has spent millions of dollars to elect a Democratic majority in the state senate. If the Democrats bail on them now, they’ll withdraw support.

GETO: I think that because the senate leadership, the Democrats, had previously said over the last couple years, we are going to put gay marriage on the floor, we are going to pass gay marriage, it was a major motivator to gay donors and gay volunteers and gay campaign consultants to support the Democratic senate effort.

REPORTER: But if Geto is right – if gay marriage gets to the senate floor because the senators know they owe it to the gay community – will the bill actually pass? It needs 32 votes, but senior senate officials say the Democrats only have about 25 right now. And here’s the problem, they say: the Democrats on the fence who are worried about re-election next year don’t want to stick their necks out unless the bill will definitely pass. But the three or four Republicans needed to pass the bill don’t want to stick their necks out either unless the Democrats on the fence are a definite yes. Could we be looking at another classic Albany staring contest?

GETO: We’ve got the votes.

REPORTER: Ethan Geto says no, because no one’s been counting the secret yes votes. Senator Tom Duane, the bill’s chief sponsor, says he’s had the votes locked up all along. But Duane won’t release the names of those yes votes because, he says, when it comes to gay marriage, senators have to come out of the closet on their own.

DUANE: I’m not releasing my vote count until we’re ready to vote. What people have told me, they’ve told me in confidence. It just wouldn’t be appropriate for me to share that.

REPORTER: But that doesn’t explain why it’s taken so long to bring the issue to a vote so far. The Majority Conference Leader supports the bill. So does Senate President Malcolm Smith. And Majority Leader Pedro Espada. The whole triumvirate is on board. But Senator Espada says their leadership may not be enough.

ESPADA: It takes a great deal of work to break through the politics of this. Specifically, there are members in both conferences that would want to thwart this.

REPORTER: It’s true the political climate on gay marriage looks murkier these days. This month, voters in Maine repealed a state law that legalized same-sex marriage. And a Republican in an upstate congressional race withdrew last month after attacks on her pro-gay-rights views. But Geto says senators scared of getting penalized for supporting gay marriage are ignoring history.

GETO: Not one state legislator or county legislator, or city or town legislator in the United States, who has voted for gay marriage or other gay rights issues, has ever lost an election.

REPORTER: Senators have called the gay marriage vote a vote of conscience. It’s not like a tax or health care bill, where you can be for some versions but not for others. With gay marriage, you’re either in or you’re out, and some advocates say that’s what makes this such a hard vote for senators who want to avoid going on the record altogether on this issue. But Geto says the gay rights movement is propelling forward, whether the New York state senate likes it or not. In his own lifetime, he’s seen a complete shift in how gay men are treated.

GETO: The gay community, from when I started as an activist in the very early 1970s, it was a different world for us then. We were criminals. People said you’re mentally ill, you’re a creep, you’re a sleaze, you’re a pervert.

REPORTER: But now, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont and Iowa have all legalized gay marriage. Bills on gay marriage have sailed through this state’s Assembly twice, and now it’s up to 62 state senators to decide if New York will join that list. For WNYC, I’m Ailsa Chang.