Scientific experts believe Japan's nuclear disaster to be far worse than governments are revealing to the public. Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 16 Jun 2011 12:50 
Japan's 9.0 earthquake on March 11 caused a massive tsunami that crippled the cooling systems at the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. It also led to hydrogen explosions and reactor meltdowns that forced evacuations of those living within a 20km radius of the plant. Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, managing and coordinating projects at 70 nuclear power plants around the US, says the Fukushima nuclear plant likely has more exposed reactor cores than commonly believed. "Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," he said, "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively." TEPCO has been spraying water on several of the reactors and fuel cores, but this has led to even greater problems, such as radiation being emitted into the air in steam and evaporated sea water - as well as generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water that has to be disposed of. "The problem is how to keep it cool," says Gundersen. "They are pouring in water and the question is what are they going to do with the waste that comes out of that system, because it is going to contain plutonium and uranium. Where do you put the water?" Even though the plant is now shut down, fission products such as uranium continue to generate heat, and therefore require cooling. "The fuels are now a molten blob at the bottom of the reactor," Gundersen added. "TEPCO announced they had a melt through. A melt down is when the fuel collapses to the bottom of the reactor, and a melt through means it has melted through some layers. That blob is incredibly radioactive, and now you have water on top of it. The water picks up enormous amounts of radiation, so you add more water and you are generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water." Independent scientists have been monitoring the locations of radioactive "hot spots" around Japan, and their findings are disconcerting. "We have 20 nuclear cores exposed, the fuel pools have several cores each, that is 20 times the potential to be released than Chernobyl," said Gundersen. "The data I'm seeing shows that we are finding hot spots further away than we had from Chernobyl, and the amount of radiation in many of them was the amount that caused areas to be declared no-man's-land for Chernobyl. We are seeing square kilometres being found 60 to 70 kilometres away from the reactor. You can't clean all this up. We still have radioactive wild boar in Germany, 30 years after Chernobyl." Radiation monitors for children Japan's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters finally admitted earlier this month that reactors 1, 2, and 3 at the Fukushima plant experienced full meltdowns. TEPCO announced that the accident probably released more radioactive material into the environment than Chernobyl, making it the worst nuclear accident on record. Meanwhile, a nuclear waste advisor to the Japanese government reported that about 966 square kilometres near the power station - an area roughly 17 times the size of Manhattan - is now likely uninhabitable. In the US, physician Janette Sherman MD and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano published an essay shedding light on a 35 per cent spike in infant mortality in northwest cities that occurred after the Fukushima meltdown, and may well be the result of fallout from the stricken nuclear plant. The eight cities included in the report are San Jose, Berkeley, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, and Boise, and the time frame of the report included the ten weeks immediately following the disaster. "There is and should be concern about younger people being exposed, and the Japanese government will be giving out radiation monitors to children," Dr MV Ramana, a physicist with the Programme on Science and Global Security at Princeton University who specialises in issues of nuclear safety, told Al Jazeera. Dr Ramana explained that he believes the primary radiation threat continues to be mostly for residents living within 50km of the plant, but added: "There are going to be areas outside of the Japanese government's 20km mandatory evacuation zone where radiation is higher. So that could mean evacuation zones in those areas as well." Gundersen points out that far more radiation has been released than has been reported. "They recalculated the amount of radiation released, but the news is really not talking about this," he said. "The new calculations show that within the first week of the accident, they released 2.3 times as much radiation as they thought they released in the first 80 days." According to Gundersen, the exposed reactors and fuel cores are continuing to release microns of caesium, strontium, and plutonium isotopes. These are referred to as "hot particles". "We are discovering hot particles everywhere in Japan, even in Tokyo," he said. "Scientists are finding these everywhere. Over the last 90 days these hot particles have continued to fall and are being deposited in high concentrations. A lot of people are picking these up in car engine air filters." Radioactive air filters from cars in Fukushima prefecture and Tokyo are now common, and Gundersen says his sources are finding radioactive air filters in the greater Seattle area of the US as well. The hot particles on them can eventually lead to cancer. "These get stuck in your lungs or GI tract, and they are a constant irritant," he explained, "One cigarette doesn't get you, but over time they do. These [hot particles] can cause cancer, but you can't measure them with a Geiger counter. Clearly people in Fukushima prefecture have breathed in a large amount of these particles. Clearly the upper West Coast of the US has people being affected. That area got hit pretty heavy in April." Blame the US? In reaction to the Fukushima catastrophe, Germany is phasing out all of its nuclear reactors over the next decade. In a referendum vote this Monday, 95 per cent of Italians voted in favour of blocking a nuclear power revival in their country. A recent newspaper poll in Japan shows nearly three-quarters of respondents favour a phase-out of nuclear power in Japan. Why have alarms not been sounded about radiation exposure in the US? Nuclear operator Exelon Corporation has been among Barack Obama's biggest campaign donors, and is one of the largest employers in Illinois where Obama was senator. Exelon has donated more than $269,000 to his political campaigns, thus far. Obama also appointed Exelon CEO John Rowe to his Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. Dr Shoji Sawada is a theoretical particle physicist and Professor Emeritus at Nagoya University in Japan. He is concerned about the types of nuclear plants in his country, and the fact that most of them are of US design. "Most of the reactors in Japan were designed by US companies who did not care for the effects of earthquakes," Dr Sawada told Al Jazeera. "I think this problem applies to all nuclear power stations across Japan." Using nuclear power to produce electricity in Japan is a product of the nuclear policy of the US, something Dr Sawada feels is also a large component of the problem. "Most of the Japanese scientists at that time, the mid-1950s, considered that the technology of nuclear energy was under development or not established enough, and that it was too early to be put to practical use," he explained. "The Japan Scientists Council recommended the Japanese government not use this technology yet, but the government accepted to use enriched uranium to fuel nuclear power stations, and was thus subjected to US government policy." As a 13-year-old, Dr Sawada experienced the US nuclear attack against Japan from his home, situated just 1400 metres from the hypocentre of the Hiroshima bomb. "I think the Fukushima accident has caused the Japanese people to abandon the myth that nuclear power stations are safe," he said. "Now the opinions of the Japanese people have rapidly changed. Well beyond half the population believes Japan should move towards natural electricity." A problem of infinite proportions Dr Ramana expects the plant reactors and fuel cores to be cooled enough for a shutdown within two years. "But it is going to take a very long time before the fuel can be removed from the reactor," he added. "Dealing with the cracking and compromised structure and dealing with radiation in the area will take several years, there's no question about that." Dr Sawada is not as clear about how long a cold shutdown could take, and said the problem will be "the effects from caesium-137 that remains in the soil and the polluted water around the power station and underground. It will take a year, or more time, to deal with this". Gundersen pointed out that the units are still leaking radiation. "They are still emitting radioactive gases and an enormous amount of radioactive liquid," he said. "It will be at least a year before it stops boiling, and until it stops boiling, it's going to be cranking out radioactive steam and liquids." Gundersen worries about more earthquake aftershocks, as well as how to cool two of the units. "Unit four is the most dangerous, it could topple," he said. "After the earthquake in Sumatra there was an 8.6 [aftershock] about 90 days later, so we are not out of the woods yet. And you're at a point where, if that happens, there is no science for this, no one has ever imagined having hot nuclear fuel lying outside the fuel pool. They've not figured out how to cool units three and four." Gundersen's assessment of solving this crisis is grim. "Units one through three have nuclear waste on the floor, the melted core, that has plutonium in it, and that has to be removed from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years," he said. "Somehow, robotically, they will have to go in there and manage to put it in a container and store it for infinity, and that technology doesn't exist. Nobody knows how to pick up the molten core from the floor, there is no solution available now for picking that up from the floor." Dr Sawada says that the creation of nuclear fission generates radioactive materials for which there is simply no knowledge informing us how to dispose of the radioactive waste safely. "Until we know how to safely dispose of the radioactive materials generated by nuclear plants, we should postpone these activities so as not to cause further harm to future generations," he explained. "To do otherwise is simply an immoral act, and that is my belief, both as a scientist and as a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing." Gundersen believes it will take experts at least ten years to design and implement the plan. "So ten to 15 years from now maybe we can say the reactors have been dismantled, and in the meantime you wind up contaminating the water," Gundersen said. "We are already seeing Strontium [at] 250 times the allowable limits in the water table at Fukushima. Contaminated water tables are incredibly difficult to clean. So I think we will have a contaminated aquifer in the area of the Fukushima site for a long, long time to come." Unfortunately, the history of nuclear disasters appears to back Gundersen's assessment. "With Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and now with Fukushima, you can pinpoint the exact day and time they started," he said, "But they never end." |
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Fukushima: It's much worse than you think
Charter School Laws Surge In Maine, N.C., Tenn.
First Posted: 06/16/11 03:48 PM ET Updated: 06/16/11 08:44 PM ET
The charter school movement appears to be making gains as new laws expanding charter access have worked their way through several state legislatures over the past week.
"There's a push to reconceptualize what public education looks like," said Charles Russo, a professor of education and law at at Dayton University. "People would like to see a new model tried to give parents more say. That's what they're selling." Charter schools are publicly funded but can be independently run.
Maine's legislature is expected to rubber stamp a law Thursday afternoon that would allow the creation of the state's first charter schools, leaving only nine states in the country without a charter school law.
On Wednesday, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed into law a bill that opens the state's charter schools to more students and lifts the cap of 90 charters state wide.
North Carolina's legislature last Friday passed a bill that would also removes its charter-school cap of 100. The governor is expected to sign the measure.
Backers of what is known as the education reform movement embrace charter schools because the flexibility inherent in their structure is said to allow innovation. Charter schools are generally not subject to the same regulations as traditional public schools, and only 90 percent of the schools employ unionized teachers. A 2009 report lauded as most authoritative research yet on the efficacy of charter schools concluded that 17 percent of the charter schools studied outperform public schools and 37 percent "deliver results that are significantly worse" than those expected of the same students in traditional public schools.
Advocates also laud the school choice charters provide, saying that a child's education should not be firmly bound to the quality of schools located in his or her neighborhood. But opponents criticize charter schools for being unable to serve students with special needs, sucking resources from traditional public schools and what some say is a system that privatizes public education.
This legislative session has seen the passage of several laws in states such as Indiana, New Mexico and Florida that encourage the growth of charter schools.
"There are two factors we can point to that have helped to spur additional and significant activity in states: One is President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan's support for charters at the national level," said Todd Ziebarth, vice president for state advocacy and support at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. "Step two were the elections last fall that helped to create strong charter-school majorities in legislatures in a number of different states."
He added that Wisconsin and Illinois are poised to be the next states to pass laws that expand charters.
Despite these new laws, charter schools face sustained backlash, the most prominent of which came in the form of a Georgia Supreme Court decision this May -- upheld Monday -- that deemed unconstitutional a state-level authorizer of charter schools that was designed as an appeal for charter schools that did not receive approval from local school boards. Charter-school advocates are gathering in Atlanta today to protest that decision.
"The backlash has always been there from 1991 when Minnesota passed its first law," Ziebarth said. "There's opposition because the charter school movement changes the fundamental power structure of public education, saying that entities other than school districts can successfully run public schools."
Maine's charter-school law includes the creation of a state-level authorizer for charter schools similar to the one found to be unconstitutional in Georgia.
The Maine Education Association opposes to the law, according to its deputy executive director Rob Walker, because more charter schools could strain the system's finances. "We're concerned about the economies of scale," he said.
Tennessee's law, Ziebarth said, is weaker than he'd like it to be. "They lifted the cap but added in language that requires district authorizers to look at potential fiscal impact on the district, which might be used as a different kind of cap," he said.
But it's not too weak for the unions. "The biggest problem with what they passed is that it's contrary to the concept of charter schools as they were originally set up in Tennessee," said Jerry Winters, chief lobbyist of the Tennessee Education Association. "They were set up to serve select students who needed special attention. This new law opens charter schools up to any student. I don’t think that's a good thing."
"It has a lot of sex appeal to people," he added. "They think they're a magic bullet. The problem is, they're not. Once they have to start serving a larger number of students, you're going to start seeing that they're not very different from other schools."
The North Carolina bill, said state Sen. Richard Stevens (R), one of the bill's architects, arose as a result of an expressed statewide need. "There are 15,000 or more students, and there parents who want to be in a charter school but can't because of the cap," he said. "Charters are an incubator and a laboratory for public education in general."
The final version of the North Carolina bill, while satisfying to charter-school advocates by ultimately allowing the creation of more schools, stripped away some pro-charter measures, including the legalization of online-based charter schools and a establishment of a state-level commission to approve charters. The final compromise made North Carolina Education Association President Sheri Strickland feel somewhat better about the law, despite her belief that more than 100 charter schools would strain the resources of the office in charge of its oversight.
"We ended up saying that while we still had concerns, we did believe that it was a better bill than the original bill," Strickland said.
Andrew Cuomo, 2016 frontrunner?
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, center, hands pens to legislators after signing into law a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., on Friday, June 24, 2011. Behind Cuomo, from left, are Assemblyman Matthew Titone, Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell, Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, Sen. Thomas Duane and Sen. James Alesi. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)The passage of a same-sex marriage bill late Friday night in New Yorkdrew considerable national coverage to the Empire State and was broadly touted as a major victory for first term Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
It’s also stoked talk that Cuomo is rapidly transforming himself into a first among equals when it comes to the jockeying for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
“It’s not just that he delivered on a major civil rights issue for the Democratic base in a huge state, it’s how he did it — winning bipartisan support and sticking with it when it seemed it might fail,” said Democratic consultant Jason Ralston. “Combine that with his name and his focus on the middle class and he is at the front of the pack for 2016.”
Obviously, it’s early to be talking about the 2016 race since we are more than a year away from the 2012 presidential contest.
It remains unclear whether the Democratic nominee in five years time will be challenging a Republican incumbent in the White House or be in an open seat race after two terms for President Obama. Given that, all speculation about the 2016 presidential race is rightly taken cum grano salis.
But, political strategists are forever looking toward the future and the next big thing — and Cuomo made a claim to that title by finessing passage of the gay marriage bill through the Republican-controlled state Senate. (Four Republican lawmakers voted with Democrats to pass the bill.)
“With the world watching, the legislature, by a bipartisan vote, has said that all New Yorkers are equal under the law,” Cuomo said after signing the bill late Friday night.
For Cuomo, it brought to a close a largely productive session of the state legislature.
“Passage of gay marriage bill tops amazing year for Gov. Andrew Cuomo,” read the headline of a news analysis by New York Daily News’ Albany bureau chief Kenneth Lovett.
“Unlike the detached George Pataki, the boorish Eliot Spitzer and the feeble David Paterson, Cuomo found a way to work with a scandal-scarred and credibility-challenged Legislature,” wrote Lovett, touting Cuomo’s successes on a budget bill and ethics reform legislation.
Cuomo’s strong session has paid off with sky-high approval ratings at a time when most governors are struggling badly.
A Quinnipiac University poll conducted earlier this month showed more than six in ten New Yorkers approved of the job Cuomo was doing while just 18 percent disapproved. Amazingly, 59 percent of self-identified Republicans said they approved of how Cuomo was handling his job.
“If you can govern successfully in this environment everyone has to take you seriously,” said longtime Democratic strategist Paul Begala.
Aside from his legislative successes and impressive poll numbers, Cuomo had two other big things going for him: his name and his fundraising capacity.
Cuomo’s father, Mario, served as the governor of New York during the 1980s and early 1990s and was once seen as the party’s strongest presidential nominee. (He passed on a bid in 1992.)
Those political bloodlines have long had Cuomo the younger on the national radar of Democratic political operatives.
But, his rise to power has occasionally been bumpy; after serving as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton Administration, Cuomo ran a weak campaign for governor in 2002, eventually dropping out in the face of a near-certain primary loss. After passing on a re-run for governor in 2006, Cuomo was easily elected in 2010.
Cuomo’s fundraising base in New York — one of the largest and most affluent Democratic donor bases in the country — also makes him a force with which to be reckoned. Cuomo collected upwards of $20 million for that race.
Asked whether Cuomo had put himself at the front of the 2016 field, one seasoned New York Democratic political observer replied “without a doubt”, adding: “He had an incredibly productive legislative session, his approval numbers are sky high, and he can raise the money.”
Among the other names mentioned as potential 2016 candidates for Democrats include: Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Virginia Sen.Mark Warner and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
Obama Comedian's Reprise
Obama Comedian's Reprise
Bill Maher got the last laugh when he invited comedian/Obama impersonator Reggie Brown onto 'Real Time.' Brown was pulled from the stage last week at the Republican leadership conference before he could complete his act.
At Clerks’ Offices, Girding for More Weddings
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: June 25, 2011
ALBANY — From City Hall in Manhattan to rural hamlets upstate, New York officials began to prepare on Saturday for a surge in gay couples expected to flood clerks’ offices next month seeking to marry.
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
In Queens on Saturday, Daniel Dromm, a City Council member, invited his community to help cut a celebratory wedding cake. More Photos »
Multimedia
Related
Behind N.Y. Gay Marriage, an Unlikely Mix of Forces (June 26, 2011)
Exemptions Were Key to Vote on Gay Marriage (June 26, 2011)
New York Allows Same-Sex Marriage, Becoming Largest State to Pass Law (June 25, 2011)
A Sense of Euphoria Settles on the West Village (June 25, 2011)
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Op-Ed Columnist: To Know Us Is to Let Us Love (June 26, 2011)
Op-Ed Columnist: Why Is He Bi? (Sigh) (June 26, 2011)
The state’s same-sex marriage law, which was signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo just before midnight on Friday, will go into effect in 30 days, meaning that gay couples can marry here beginning on July 24.
Gay couples from out of state will also be allowed to apply for wedding licenses and hold nuptials in New York.
Roughly 45,000 gay couples live in New York State, according to census estimates. No exact projection is available for how many will marry here, but officials are readying for thousands, especially in the first week.
“We are training our staff to be prepared for a very large number of people on the first day,” said Michael McSweeney, the New York City clerk, who oversees the marriage bureau. “We are going to be part of history.”
The city has struck an agreement to increase the number of state judges available to perform same-sex marriages. Their workload could swell; John Feinblatt, a top adviser to the mayor, said judges could be bombarded by requests to circumvent the 24-hour waiting period.
Over the next 30 days, state officials must also rewrite the marriage license application form and distribute it to the hundreds of city and town clerks. In Oneonta, a college town of about 14,000 people in central New York, the city clerk, James R. Koury, was expecting a surge in applications, especially on the first day.
“I think we’re probably going to have people coming that day, and I’m looking forward to it,” Mr. Koury said.
The marriage bill was approved in the State Senate late Friday night by a vote of 33 to 29. Four Republicans joined all but one Democrat in supporting the measure after a lengthy and often-heated campaign.
The state’s political establishment is watching closely to see what kind of backlash those four Republicans will face. Already, the National Organization for Marriage, an advocacy group, is pledging to raise $2 million in a bid to defeat them.
New York is now the sixth and largest state to permit same-sex marriage, joining Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, along with the District of Columbia.
After the passage of the legislation, the governor declared that New York had resumed its role as a “beacon for social justice.” Mr. Cuomo, the prime mover of the bill, is expected to march in the city’s gay pride parade on Sunday, which will likely be an emotional and overflowing gathering. His past appearance at the parade was attacked by his Republican opponent, Carl P. Paladino, during the campaign for governor last year. Mr. Paladino criticized Mr. Cuomo for taking his teenage daughter to march alongside him.
The governor is certain to be a major attraction this year in the procession, which sweeps down Fifth Avenue and across Greenwich Village. Attendance is typically 1.5 million; this year, organizers expect an additional 500,000 to 1 million people.
“The phones have been ringing off the hook!” said Britton Hogge, the media director for Heritage of Pride, which runs the parade. “It’s going to be one big celebration, a catharsis, if you will. This has been building for some time.”
Ross Levi, the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, said, “Its going to be the biggest street party ever.”
In the hours after the vote Friday night, people danced, embraced and sang in the streets of the West Village. On Saturday morning, smaller celebrations continued to break out. Councilman Daniel Dromm, who is gay, brought a wedding cake and homemade cupcakes to the local post office in Jackson Heights, Queens, which has seen an influx of gay residents over the past decade, and invited supporters to enjoy a slice.
Passage of the legislation is expected to spawn a cottage industry around same-sex marriage in the state. The city estimated in 2009 that the state economy would gain up to $210 million over the first three years of same-sex marriage.
The change, of course, will mean fewer gay New Yorkers traveling to Massachusetts and Connecticut and spending money on weddings there.
“We’ve actually had a long stream of residents from Manhattan and other parts of New York come up to Connecticut for the weekend to have their marriage ceremony and reception here,” Andrew J. McDonald, general counsel to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut.
In Kingston, N.Y., a small town 90 miles north of Manhattan, the entrepreneur Paul Joffe said he was dusting off plans to turn the decommissioned Methodist church that he bought six years ago into a mecca for same-sex weddings.
“The moment it’s legal, I want people to be there,” he said.
Exemptions Were Key to Vote on Gay Marriage
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: June 25, 2011
ALBANY — It was just a few paragraphs, but they proved to be the most microscopically examined and debated — and the most pivotal — in the battle over same-sex marriage.
Enlarge This Image
Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times
Senator Stephen M. Saland helped to fine-tune changes in the bill on gay marriage.
Related
Behind N.Y. Gay Marriage, an Unlikely Mix of Forces (June 26, 2011)
At Clerks’ Offices, Girding for More Weddings (June 26, 2011)
New York Allows Same-Sex Marriage, Becoming Largest State to Pass Law (June 25, 2011)
A Sense of Euphoria Settles on the West Village (June 25, 2011)
Related in Opinion
Op-Ed Columnist: Why Is He Bi? (Sigh) (June 26, 2011)
Op-Ed Columnist: To Know Us Is to Let Us Love (June 26, 2011)
Language that Republican senators inserted into the bill legalizing same-sex marriage provided more expansive protections for religious organizations and helped pull the legislation over the finish line Friday night.
The Republicans who insisted on the provision did not only want religious organizations and affiliated groups to be protected from lawsuits if they refused to provide their buildings or services for same-sex marriage ceremonies, they also wanted them to be spared any penalties by state government. That would mean, for example, a church that declined to accommodate same-sex weddings could not be penalized later with the loss of state aid for the social service programs it administers.
Such language is not unheard of; New Hampshire, which also approved a same-sex marriage bill, included similar protections.
Senator Stephen M. Saland, a Republican and a Hudson Valley lawyer known for his cautious and low-profile approach, was one of three senators who negotiated the language changes with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, and his administration, spending days poring over the fine print.
The amendment that was passed stated that barring access to same-sex ceremonies, or failing to provide services for them, would not “result in any state or local government action to penalize, withhold benefits, or discriminate against such religious corporation, benevolent order, a not-for-profit corporation operated, supervised or controlled by a religious corporation.”
The amendment also included protections for “any employee thereof being managed, directed or supervised by or in conjunction with a religious corporation, benevolent order or a not-for-profit corporation.” And it included similar protections for clergy who declined to perform same-sex ceremonies.
Finally, the legislation contained what is known as an inseverability clause. If a court found any part of the act to be invalid, the entire legislation would also be invalid. The clause is an important provision to Republicans because it means that the marriage legislation would be at risk if the religious exemptions were successfully challenged in court.
Before the bill was taken up, the New York Civil Liberties Union said it could live with the exemptions. “We have reviewed the entire bill, including the latest amendments, and we urge the Legislature to pass the Marriage Equality Act immediately,” said Donna Lieberman, the group’s executive director. She said the new legislation “respects the right of clergy, churches and religious organizations to decide for themselves which marriages they will or will not solemnize or celebrate in keeping with our country’s principles of religious freedom.”
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