Yesterday’s coup (or coup attempt) in the New York State Senate has thrown a new wrench in the effort to pass a marriage equality bill that has already been approved by the Assembly.

The Byzantine politics that produced a stunning floor fight for control of the body apparently did not have much to do with the marriage question, according to reports in Gay City News and FiveThirtyEight.com.  In fact, the New York Times’ City Room blog reported the coup is the mastermind of a Rochester billionaire who was upset with senate Democrats.

Even though the marriage bill may not have precipitated the upheaval, some now question whether a Republican-controlled senate will even bring the bill to the floor for a vote.  Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com explains the prospects:

If you absolutely need a ray of hope, the new rules the Senate seems prepared to operate under appears to give more power to individual members in pushing legislation to the floor.

# A new motion for consideration is created. A sponsor may move to have his or her bill included on the next active list if a majority of members present and voting agree to the motion.
# A petition for consideration is also created, which allows a majority of the members elected to request a bill be put to the floor. If successful, the bill shall be placed on the active list for the next session day. If within the last four days of session, it shall be immediately considered by the body if successful.

So in theory, if gay marriage had the 32 votes it needed to begin with, it would also have the votes for a “motion for consideration” to bring it to the floor. The problem is that gay marriage only had about 20 or so enthusiastic supporters, and under the current conditions my guess is that most the other 12 are going to be careful about making any false moves, even if you might find a couple of sympathetic Republicans who were planning to vote no on gay marriage but were nevertheless willing to bring it to a floor vote.

But, who knows. Marriage equity advocates should probably be focusing their attention for the time being on collecting votes (or signatures) for a so-called motion (or petition) of consideration, and calling out senators who are trying to have it both ways — pun somewhat intended.

UPDATE:  The new President Pro Tem of the Senate, Pedro Espada, today told a radio interviewer he expects the marriage equality will be voted on.  According to a transcript  on a New York Daily News Blog, Espada said:

“I’m going to be pushing very very hard for issues like same-sex marriage to not be pre-determined in a smoke-filled room, but to let it air out in full debate on the Senate floor as soon as possible. You know, people haven’t been asking for guaranteed results. They’re been asking for an honest full debate on the floor so we can vote it up or down.”

We have about eight or ten undecided senators on this issue.  That’s what we do here we debate and try to convince people with opposing points of view to reach common ground.”