By Jill Colvin and Andrea Swalec
DNAinfo Staff
MANHATTAN — Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour thawed out her famously icy demeanor for a new video advocating the right to gay marriage in a new Human Rights Campaign video posted to the advocacy group's website on Tuesday.
"As far as I'm concerned, having the right to say 'I Do' is as fundamental as the right to vote," Wintour says in the 31-second video, addressing the camera clad in her impeccable bob, chic blue and white cap-sleeve dress and tasteful necklace.
"The time is now. Please join me in supporting marriage equality for all New Yorkers," urges Wintour, whose other political forays have included hosting President Barack Obama in her Greenwich Village apartment and showing up unexpectedly to her local community board meeting.
The video was released Tuesday as Bloomberg headed to Albany, where he described marriage equality as New York state's most significant issue.
"You should be able to be in charge of your own destiny," the mayor told reporters. "I think this is the key issue for New York State."
Bloomberg compared the weight of the gay marriage issue to the national fight for immigration reform.
"I think it's one of the defining issues of our lifetime," he said. "Marriage equality is going to happen eventually. I think even people my age understand that the time has come."
Still, the mayor declined to say that he would withhold political support from those who oppose a marriage equality bill, a loaded statement given the notable absence in Tuesday's meetings of Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has said he supported gay marriage in the past.
"The real world is, you cannot pick one issue and say it's all or nothing," Bloomberg said. "But I certainly will concentrate and focus more on those who do."
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said that it's crucial to have personal conversations with lawmakers to make them understand what's at stake.
"At the end of the day, I think it's really hard to look the mayor of the City of New York in the eye and say the people he represents who are LGBT are less than the people he represents that are heterosexual," she said.
"There is no good reason, no appropriate reason, no ethical reason, to tell me I am less than any other New Yorker," said Quinn, who is openly lesbian.
A bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state has passed the State Assembly three times, but didn't come up for a vote in the State Senate until July 2010, when it was rejected 38-24.
A recent Siena Research Institute poll estimates that a record high of 58 percent of New York's registered voters support gay marriage, compared with a record low 36 percent who oppose it.
