Spitzer's gay gamble  The New York governor bucks a national
trend: he wants to let gays marry.  According to an article in
this morning's New York Times, New York governor Eliot Spitzer
will soon do what has long been considered political suicide in
the US: introduce a bill to legalise gay marriage.  The
development is significant because so few politicians with
national profiles (much less national ambitions) are willing to
voice support for same-sex weddings. (To the best of this
blogger's knowledge, Spitzer, a Democrat, is the highest-profile
elected official to have done so.) Republican presidential
candidates who have offered support for gay rights in the past -
like Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney - are now suspiciously silent
on the issue, and even Democrats rarely go further than to
express support for civil unions.  As it now stands,
Massachusetts is the only state in the union that allows same-
sex weddings - and it does so only because of a 2003 court
ruling, not legislation.  Of course, just because