Have you ever heard the phrase, “Don’t write any checks with your mouth that your butt can’t cash?”

Well, newly minted Democratic NYS Senate Majority Leader should have asked that question to himself before he promised to make passing a gay marriage bill in the State Senate at “the top of our list.”

After promising not to sell out Democratic principles when negotiating a deal with the Gang of 3 to claim their votes in order to secure more power for himself, Senator Smith has obviously done just that and has placed legislation on gay marriage at the bottom of the pile.

Paul Schindler over at the Gay City News writes this article summarizing how gay and lesbian voters and political funding donors are going to get screwed over by Malcolm Smith and the new Democrat Senate Majority.  Here’s a clip from the article:

At the Fall Dinner of the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA) one year earlier, Smith, in an exuberant mood, pledged to put marriage equality, already passed by the Assembly and supported by Governor David Paterson, at “the top of the list” if the Democrats gained control of the Senate.

Based on such promises from Smith and the clearly voiced intransigence of the Senate Republican leadership, ESPA had put all its eggs in the Democratic basket in this past fall’s Senate contests.

The LGBT community poured poured millions into State Democrat coffers in exchange for this vote, but Malcolm Smith decided that him getting the Majority Leader job, and all the money and power that goes with it, were more important.

Schindler conveys his point here:

Sources knowledgeable about discussions that followed the December 4 meeting make clear that the Pride Agenda worked very hard to hang tough in its stance that any deal delaying a marriage vote was unacceptable to LGBT voters, who made significant financial contributions to the Democratic Senate effort.

Even more shocking for the LGBT community is the fact that Malcolm Smith and the Democrats knew ahead of time that their election efforts would not yield enough Democrat votes to pass gay marriage.  Yet, Smith still took their money while making them believe they would be rewarded in 2009 for all of their money and support. 

BTW, what does this mean?

The most recent, pre-election list compiled by ESPA of senators publicly supporting the bill was 21, out of the 32 needed.

What it means is, after you back out the two GOP downstate Senators that lost this past November, there were 9 Democrat Senators who either did not support gay marriage, or who refused to state their position on the topic.

Face it, no matter where you stand on the issue of gay marriage, the LGBT community was sold a bill of goods by the democrats in exchange for their millions.  The Senate Democrats knew they couldn’t pass gay marriage yet they made the gay community think they would get their law if the Dems took over.

The LGBT community needs to ask themselves a few questions.  Once the deal was struck that they would bankroll Democrat races in exchange for passage of a gay marriage bill, how hard did the Democrats work for them to secure enough votes by only supporting pro-gay marriage Democratic candidates.  And, why didn’t the Democrats run primaries against all of the anti-gay marriage Democrats with candidates whose votes the LGBT community could count on?

These comments from Senate Dems are classic.  Keep in mind, there are no simple “yes” or “no” answers… that would be too honest (bold is mine):

Daniel Squadron, a newly elected Democratic Senator representing Lower Manhattan and portions of Brooklyn who promised to “beat the drum” as “aggressively as anyone” for marriage equality, said, of the final leadership resolution, “My understanding is there is no legislation promised to be on the floor and no legislation that is impossible to get to the floor.”

He added, “The conversations that were had were about committee positions, not about legislation.”

Duane, who participated in a December 12 meeting that Smith had with labor and progressive groups, including ESPA, assuring them that marriage equality would not be bargained away, concurred with Squadron. Asked whether he was confident that nothing had been promised to Diaz regarding blocking a pro-marriage majority that may emerge, the Chelsea Democrat referred to the new majority leader’s December 10 pronouncement repudiating his original talks with the rebel senators.

“The final word was Malcolm Smith’s statement,” Duane said.

Those were some excellent Democrat dodges there fellas.

Listen, this isn’t rocket science.  Malcolm Smith had no intention of delivering a gay marriage bill in 2009 and now he’s back peddling in order to keep LGBT money funneling into his coffers.  My point, lest I be falsely accused of hating gays or spearheading an anti-gay agenda, is that Malcolm Smith and the Senate Democrats are hypocrites who care more about their own money and power than the progressive issues they pretend to support.

Again, was THAT the change you wanted?