Former President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea are the latest high-profile names urging New York lawmakers to legalize gay marriage.
Chelsea helped kick off phonebanking efforts on for the campaign on Thursday with New Yorkers United for Marriage, a coalition of New York gay rights organizations.
Clinton sat in a cubicle to get trained on the phone system, as other volunteers tried to casual while they surreptitiously snapped photos of her with their cell phones. Organizers said this year's gay marriage campaign will be propelled by star power.
After a stinging defeat in Albany in 2009, gay rights groups say celebrity support, along with Governor Andrew Cuomo's, could help them pass gay marriage by early summer. Chelsea Clinton says it would make a great anniversary present.
"As someone who got married last year, it was certainly the happiest day of my life to be able to marry my best friend, and I fundamentally believe that every New Yorker, every American and everyone should have the same right," Clinton said.
Her father Bill released a written statement Thursday expressing the same sentiments: "Our nation's permanent mission is to form a ‘more perfect union’ - deepening the meaning of freedom, broadening the reach of opportunity, strengthening the bonds of community. ... Now we should do it again, in New York, with marriage equality."
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