Is Mariah Carey Already Married to Nick Cannon?That’s what ‘Latina’ is reporting. At first, we didn’t believe it, but then we got mad at ourselves for even trying to think about it rationally.
Jon Corzine Will Sign Gay-Marriage Bill, But Won’t Give Republicans a Talking PointGovernor Jon Corzine of New Jersey is frustrating gay activists because he is hesitant to get moving on a bill to change the state’s civil-unions policy to one of flat-out marriage equality. After a report was released yesterday that says civil unions in the state are not equal to marriages, the state legislature is under pressure to change the law. Civil unions have been allowed since 2006 in New Jersey after the State Supreme Court ruled that gay couples should receive the same legal rights and protections as married straight couples. Legislators quickly created a law that was designed to give equality to all parties. In order to comply with the decree of the Supreme Court, adjustments have to be made to the current policy, but Corzine says he wants to wait until after November to do so. “He will sign a bill, but doesn’t want to make it a presidential-election-year issue,” Corzine spokeswoman Lilo Stainton said. This is a shrewd move, both for Democrats and gays alike. A Republican nominee will be sure to use the specter of gay marriage to scare their base to the voting booths in November, as George Bush did so effectively in 2004. The last thing that gays hoping to wed (and Democrats hoping to win) need are endless high-profile speeches about the sanctity of marriage. It’s the one issue that could bring evangelicals like James Dobson together with front-runner John McCain, whom they currently mistrust.
N.J. governor concerned civil unions don’t bring equal rights [Newsday]
in other news
It’s Not Easy Being … MarriedIt’s only appropriate that yesterday’s edition of “Sunday Styles,” with its cover story on the Union Square Greenmarket and other green options in that apparently green neighborhood, included what might also be one of our favorite wedding announcements ever. It seems Susan Lee Green was married to Adam Seth Greene Thursday evening. And who performed the Green-Greene nuptials? Rabbi David E. Greenberg. The wedding was held at the Metropolitan Club, the Stanford White building which we’ve never been inside but have always thought was gorgeous from the outside. Which makes us a touch green with envy. —Lori Fradkin
Susan Green, Adam Greene [NYT]
the morning line
Bloomberg Calling
• People are receiving anonymous, computerized telephone polls asking if they’d support a Bloomberg run for the presidency if he spent $1 billion of his own money on it. When asked if the poll was conducted by Bloomberg, aides in his office refused to confirm or deny it. How very diabolical! [NYDN]
in other news
Gay-Marriage Bill Passes, Fails, and Freaks Out a Bronx DemAs expected, the New York State Assembly passed a gay-marriage bill yesterday. (Which is kind of a big deal, and fairly cool.) As expected, Joe Bruno announced that the bill won’t even come up for a vote in the State Senate. (Which is par for the course, and which kills it for this year.) And then last night we received this press release in our in-box, which reminded us, though we often forget, that New York can be more like America than we’d like to think:
Statement by NYS Senator Rev. Ruben Diaz (D-Bronx)
On Today’s Assembly Vote for Homosexual Marriage
June 19, 2007
As a legislator of Hispanic origin, today I am very disappointed with those members of the Hispanic delegation in the State Assembly for supporting homosexual marriage in New York.
the morning line
Mike Bloomberg, Independent
• The political world is waking up to a queasy query — is Mike Bloomberg a Ross Perot or a Ralph Nader (or, one hopes, neither)? Of course, the man himself is no help: He still says he’s not running. [NYT]
• Rudy Giuliani’s campaign, meanwhile, seems to be aiming squarely at the high-school-hooligan vote. First it comes out he’d been booted off the Iraq Study Group for truancy. Now his former South Carolina campaign chairman has been indicted for — are you ready for this? — selling crack. [NYDN]
• If you tried leaving the city last night, you’re, well, probably still here. The three area airports canceled hundreds of flights because of the major thunderstorms blazing from here to the Midwest. [WNBC]
• The new city regulation requiring fast-food places to post calorie count on their menus is now not going into effect until the legal fight over it plays out. So far, it’s had the opposite effect — Quizno’s and White Castle deleted all nutritional info from their Websites altogether. [amNY]
• And two female marriage-license clerks are allegedly terrorizing Bronx couples by refusing to do their jobs and closing the office early. Maybe they’re stealth Dworkinites. [NYP]
in other news
Shelly Silver Loves Gays, Traffic; Joe Bruno Hates Both
Who’d have thunk it. Just shy of a year after New York’s top court ruled against same-sex marriages, the Assembly, today’s Sun tells us, is set to pass legislation allowing it, making New York only the second state in which a legislative body has done so, after California. (Schwarzenegger vetoed California’s bill; same-sex marriage in Massachusetts was ordered by the courts, not the legislature.) Shelly Silver hasn’t taken a public stand on the question, but he’s considered likely to vote for the measure, which is believed to have enough votes to pass. Spitzer has also said he’ll sign. But don’t book the catering hall yet, Mary: Joe Bruno and his Senate Republicans are, naturally, opposed. Which will no doubt doom the measure this year. Meantime, in the other big legislative news we city folk care about — well, aside from Times reporter Nick Confessore’s limited nightlife options — it’s Bruno and the Spitz who favor congestion pricing, and Silver’s who’s gonna hold up that one, it looks like. Gotta love Albany. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Assembly Set to Approve Gay Marriage [NYS]
intel
Straight Rabbi at Gay Shul Set to Be Not-Quite-MarriedSo what happens when the (straight) associate rabbi at the Village’s (gay) Congregation Beth Simchat Torah decides to get married in a state (New York) that doesn’t allow same-sex unions? Rabbi Ayelet Cohen will put on a lacey Carmen Marc Valvo gown this Sunday, walk down the aisle, make a commitment to her husband-to-be, Rabbi Marc Margolius, and throw a traditional Jewish reception — “Hava Nagilah,” raised chairs, food, cake, the whole megillah — for 200-odd guests at the Puck Building. But she won’t actually, legally get married. “This is one of the major social injustices of our time,” she said. “I cannot, in good conscience, participate in a system that actively excludes and discriminates against same-sex couples” — including her 4,000 congregants.
the morning line
Surrender!
• The fourth suspect in the alleged JFK pipeline plot is in custody. At the urging of a friend, Abdel Nur, 57, walked into a police station in Diego Martin, Trinidad, and turned himself in. [NYDN]
• More surrenderings! Former assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr. and former State Supreme Court justice Gerald Garson, the main characters in a protracted judgeships-for-sale investigation, were sentenced yesterday. Both men left a Brooklyn courtroom in handcuffs, although Garson eked out a stay of his sentence. [NYT]
• Ready for a $3 subway fare? By 2010, warns the Straphangers Campaign, the unlimited MetroCard will likely be $112 or, if the state coughs up some extra MTA cash, $92. But that’s okay, because all our salaries will rise by 50 percent, too — right? Right? [amNY]
• Gay marriage: bad for the baby Jesus, great for the economy. A new study by the city comptroller suggests that legalizing same-sex marriage would result in $142 million in economic benefits for NYC. [Crain’s NY]
• And Carla Katz, the Jersey union leader who’s also, awkwardly, Governor Corzine’s ex, tells all! In a Post exclusive! To Cindy Adams! Her big revelation: “There’s absolutely nothing I have on Jon.” [NYP]
sex diaries
The Mid-Divorce MotherOnce a week, Daily Intel takes a peek at what your friends and neighbors are doing behind doors left slightly ajar. Today, the Mid-Divorce Mother: female, 50, Norwood (the Bronx), writer, straight, divorcing “after years of ambivalence.”
DAY ONE
6:00 p.m.: Dinner and drinks with four women, all over 50. They are all so intelligent, funny, evolved, and alive.
9:00 p.m.: Two of the women are a couple who met on an Internet matchmaking service four months ago. I wonder if I shortchanged myself in life by never truly exploring bisexual possibilities.
11:00 p.m.: Go to sleep on couch. Soon-to-be ex-husband of sixteen years sleeps in the bedroom, 15-year-old son in his room.
ByArianne Cohen
photo op
Who Told You You’re Allowed to Rain on This Parade?
Wedding March 2007 was held Saturday afternoon, when Marriage Equality New York led several hundred protesters across the Brooklyn Bridge to demonstrate for same-sex marriage rights in New York State. The turnout was smaller than expected, because it wasn’t such a nice day. But, then, if it had been a nice day, the umbrellas would have stayed at home and the aerial photos — as displayed on the blog mcbrooklyn — would have been much less dramatic.
Gay Marriage Marchers Brave Synthetic Turf at Cadman Park [mcbrooklyn]
The Wedding March 2007 [Marriage Equality NY]
in other news
You’ll Never Find Him, Ladies. Just Read the ‘Times’Today’s “Thursday Styles” brings bad news to single New York gals. As it turns out, taking classes running, tennis, wine tasting, you name it is not the best way to meet men. Apparently, men don’t think they need to take classes, explains Stephanie Rosenbloom. “It goes against the male grain to acknowledge ignorance about a subject.” Consider the case of Wendy Hill. The poor girl signed up for a course at the Met and various activities for the unattached, all with unpromising results. “She described the men in her architecture classes as 60-somethings, and the few she’d met at class activities geared to singles as ‘blech.’” Sure, there are exceptions congrats on that upcoming wedding, Debra Wilensky and Randy Weinstein! but, overall, instructors don’t report high hit-it-off success rates. Still, ladies, don’t despair: Hope comes in the very same section of the Times. It’s not that men avoid all group activities: They’re just really busy with Bounce-n-Slide. Lori Fradkin
Mr. Right, It Turns Out, Does Not Take Classes [NYT]
Stretching, Sliding, Bonding: A Multitasking Mix [NYT]
in other news
Spitzer to Back Gay-Marriage Bill, Sort of
Gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer’s stand on gay marriage was clear and vocal: He was all for it. (Indeed, the Spitz was going to “force [it] down the throats of New Yorkers,” as overmatched challenger John Faso unfortunately phrased things.) But Governor Spitzer’s stand was less clear-cut; eyebrows raised when there was no mention of the issue in his first State of the State address. (“We had to prioritize,” was the curt word from Spitzer’s camp, “and this is how we prioritized.”) But now it appears the guv is playing a shrewd game. Four months and change into his term, he’s introducing legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage. As promised.
in other news
Rabbit Redux: About All Those Single WomenNow that single women officially outnumber married ones in the United States, it’s worth remembering that it was New York feminists in the seventies who first advanced the idea — long before Maureen Dowd made her first pop-culture reference — that men might not be so necessary. (At least, not until fish started needing bicycles.) And what did those activists say could take the place of men? Vibrating sex toys, says 85-year-old Dell Williams, founder of Eve’s Garden on West 57th Street, which she claims was the first sex shop in the city owned and run by women. “Vibrators are a girl’s best friend, not diamonds,” she says. She recalls with particular fondness “The Rabbit,” a bedside companion first introduced in the eighties that ran on three batteries. “It had a clitoral stimulator that looked like a rabbit. It appeared in Sex and the City and suddenly became very popular.” Williams, a divorced former actress and advertising exec who opened her shop in 1978, says that three-decade-old books on feminine fulfillment — like Betty Dodson’s Sex for One and Lonnie Barbach’s For Yourself — remain best-sellers at Eve’s Garden. “Marriage hasn’t done that well for women in our society,” she says. “Think of all the violence, all the prejudice. Marriage is not so great for women, and women are saying, ‘I’m not so sure this is what I want.’” She doesn’t rule out giving marital life another try herself, though. With one condition: “I would have to have my own bedroom.” —Mary Reinholz
Earlier: More U.S. Women Are Single Than Married: Discuss
in other news
More U.S. Women Are Single Than Married: Discuss
A record-setting 51 percent of U.S. women are now living without a spouse, according to a report in today’s Times — up from 35 percent in 1950. How do New York women feel about that spike? We asked them in front of that temple of matrimony, the Kleinfeld bridal megashop in Chelsea. —Tim Murphy
the morning line
Oh Mother
• So who’s to blame for yesterday’s sulfuric odor across Manhattan that today has tabloid headline writers gleefully trafficking in fart puns? The leading version is an emission from a swamp across the Hudson. New Jersey, we thought better of you. [NYP]
• A security guard employed at the Office of the State Comptroller in Albany is being charged with exposing himself to two 13-year-old girls this past Saturday — at the office. Kinda puts Hevesi’s indiscretions in perspective. [AP via amNY]
• A Bronx mother who had earlier claimed her baby was stolen at gunpoint on New Year’s Eve is now suspected of abandoning the 1-month-old in a Dumpster. The cops are frantically searching landfills. [WNBC]
• Meet Stavon Simpson, a slightly less evil mom. According to the D.A., she took the $186,000 life-insurance payout from the dead father of her child — bequeathed expressly to the daughter’s education — and decided it would be better spent on a Land Rover and things like the cable bill. Because the most important lesson is confidence. [NYDN]
• And, you still can’t get gay-married in New York, but you can get gay-divorced. One half of a feuding ex-couple cited the union’s illegality to get out of a separation agreement; in a Solomon-esque decision, a city judge has ruled that the contract stands even if the marriage itself doesn’t. [NYT]
intel
Charmin Squeezes One Last News Item Out of Us
We are heartbroken to report that our favorite object of defecatory dreams — the neat-and-clean-and-always- stocked-with-toilet-paper Charmin public toilets at Times Square — closed on New Year’s Eve. Lest they be forgotten forever, however, the friendly flacks pushing the paper — and, yes, we know we’re currently giving them exactly the PR hit they wanted — inform us that one couple had perhaps the most important night of their young lives in the giant public bathroom. Neal and Jalista, of Easton, Pennsylvania, were engaged on the evening of December 30 in the Charmin space, which apparently they deemed even more romantic than becoming betrothed in the restroom of the ESPN Zone next door. May your lives together remain squeezably soft, you crazy kids!
Earlier: Daily Intel’s coverage of the Charmin toilets.
the follow-up
One More Thing About the Pirros: Al Wants Counseling
When Jeanine Pirro’s campaign for attorney general is over — or, to be cruel but precise, once she loses — she’ll be going straight into marriage counseling, at least if her husband has anything to do with it.
New York’s Steve Fishman profiled the Pirros’ increasingly confounding marriage for this week’s magazine, and he found Al Pirro, Jeanine’s wayward husband — by all accounts a screamer, a bruiser, a brusque alpha male — surprisingly wounded and therapized, talking about his anxieties. Al knows he needs to be flattered, to be reminded that he makes more money than Jeanine, to feel generous (Fishman zeroes in on his compulsive need to pick up the check, even for parties of 30). He denies the infidelities that drove Jeanine up the wall (and into the dubious confidences of Bernie Kerik) while readily admitting something even more hurtful to a relationship: that he needs outside female companionship, be it platonic or not, because he doesn’t feel encouraged, admired, or appreciated at home. And he knows the couple needs to work on these issues.
“He was essentially stewing,” Fishman says. “He feels that he’s been shut out, silenced, and attacked, both by the campaign and by his wife personally.” Is there enough therapy in the world to get the pair past all that? Maybe, Fishman says. The real turning point for the relationship, he says, was Al’s tax-evasion conviction. “But it was never a fake marriage. There’s a basis of deep mutual admiration — hell, love.”
Can This Marriage Be Saved? [NYM]