Michael Long Says if You’re Legally Married and Gay, No Way

Castaldi receives boot from Conservative line due to her legal marriage to another female

The New York State Conservative Party has booted Republican Janice Castaldi from a possible Conservative Party endorsement in Rockland and Westchester Counties for the State Senate seat currently occupied by Senator David Carlucci.

The reason: she is legally married by the state of Connecticut to a member of her own gender. Party Chairman Michael Long and the state committee have made it the party’s policy that no politician who supports gay marriage will receive an official party endorsement. New York Conservatives consider marriage one of their signature issues and have vowed revenge against the four Republicans who voted for “marriage equality” in 2011.

Town and county parties are free to do as they please in local endorsements, but when a district overlaps two counties as most Senate districts do, the state party has veto power. Long has said the issue is not Castaldi’s orientation but her view on the marriage issue, as she obviously is a supporter of New York’s marriage equality law. However, it does put Long and the Conservatives in the potentially awkward position of removing a candidate simply for following the law of the land as it’s written.

Rockland County’s Conservative Party does not follow the state dictate for local races. Locally the Conservative line often is given to Democrats who hold themselves out to be supporters of “marriage equality.”

  38th district, against, Chairman, conservative, conservative party, david carlucci, gallery, janice castaldi, legal, long, marriage, michael long, opposed, republican, same-sex marriage