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NATIONAL BRIEFING / NEW YORK

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Times Wire Reports

Decades after a riot at a Greenwich Village bar sparked a movement for equal rights, gay New Yorkers celebrated their gains at the annual gay pride parade and lamented that the state had not legalized same-sex marriage.

The march down Fifth Avenue commemorated the Stonewall rebellion of 40 years ago, when patrons at a gay bar resisted the police. The several days of disturbances that followed the uprising became one of the defining moments of the gay rights movement.

The celebration was tempered by the knowledge that other states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa, have legalized same-sex marriage before New York.

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Gov. David A. Paterson said he remained hopeful that the state Senate would pass a same-sex marriage bill -- if it could resolve the stalemate that had paralyzed it.

“If we have an end to the stalemate in Albany, I would think that it would be passed shortly after,” he said. “We believe we can pass the bill.”

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