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Christine Quinn, the speaker of the New York City Council and an openly gay official in the city, issued a statement this afternoon hailing the California Supreme Court’s ruling today that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

Here’s her statement:

“I applaud the California Supreme Court for lifting its ban on gay marriage and upholding the fundamental and universal rights of civil equality and equal protection.

“While this is a tremendous victory in our fight for equal rights, we must carry on with our efforts toward making marriage equality a reality in the state of New York. I implore every member of the New York State Legislature to place equal rights ahead of politics and end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people by conferring the right to marry to same-sex couples.

“History has repeatedly shown that the arch of equality always bends towards justice. I know that, soon enough, LGBT New Yorkers will have the right to marry.”

New York has a mixed history of support for same sex marriages. A few years back, same-sex marriage proponents initially sought the legalization of same-sex marriage through New York’s courts. Five separate suits were filed seeking same-sex marriage. At the trial level, four failed and one succeeded (though it was stayed and later reversed). At the intermediate appellate level, four failed and one was not decided. The cases were all rolled into one and heard by the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, on May 31,2006. On July 6, 2006, the Court of Appeals in Hernandez v. Robles decided that New York law does not permit same-sex marriage and that there is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

Following the Hernandez decision, the focus of the same-sex marriage battle shifted to the executive and legislative branches of government. During his campaign for Governor of New York, then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said that he would push to legalize same-sex marriage if elected,[1]and he proposed legislation to that effect to the state legislature on April 27, 2007. This legislation passed in the State Assembly on June 19, 2007, but died in the State Senate and was returned to the Assembly.[2]

In February 2008, a five-judge panel of the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department ruled unanimously in Martinez v. County of Monroe that because New York legally recognizes out-of-state marriages of opposite-sex couples, it must do the same for same-sex couples. Monroe County subsequently announced its intention to move for leave to appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals.[3] On May 6, 2008 the Court of Appeals refused to hear the case, effectively allowing the lower court’s ruling to stand.