It's time, N.Y.

Hear that, New York? The Obama administration says the federal law that banned recognition of same-sex marriage -- and with it, denied health and pension benefits to countless Americans -- is unconstitutional.

Unusual, if long overdue, clarity came Wednesday with the concession that a law passed 15 years ago, in a very different climate for sexual politics, couldn't pass constitutional muster. It's legally indefensible, to be quite blunt about it.

Politically difficult, too. The President, who says his personal position on same-sex marriage is an "evolving" matter, has given further momentum to the push for equal rights for gays.

In Albany, not even the most socially conservative or politically tone deaf state lawmakers can deny that continuing to prevent gays from legally marrying just got noticeably harder. So much so that its advocates -- from Governor Cuomo, in his position of resounding popularity, to Thomas Duane, in the trenches of the state Senate -- should push for another vote on gay marriage.

The 38-24 vote against same-sex marriage in the state Senate two years ago just might represent politics as obsolete as the Justice Department's vow last month to keep fighting in court against the very forces it's now joined in opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act. Even a closer, albeit losing vote, could upend the political dynamics.

It's a different Senate, remember, than the one that voted down gay marriage in 2009. The Republicans who voted unanimously against it have seven new members.

There will be more pressure to put on the old members, too. That means you, Roy McDonald of Wilton. You, too, Hugh Farley of Niskayuna.

As for the Democrats, there's little reason to think that eight of their members would oppose gay marriage, as was the case in 2009. Five of the 30 Democrats now in the Senate hadn't been elected then.

Keep in mind, too, the 50,000 or so gay couples who would be able to legally marry in New York if the Senate rewrote the law to reflect a more tolerant era. They have the public on their side. A Quinnipiac University poll last week showed that New Yorkers favor same-sex marriage, 54 percent to 39 percent.

Among them is Edith Windsor, an 81-year-old widow who filed a federal lawsuit seeking reimbursement of $360,000 she had to pay in estate taxes because the federal government did not recognize her marriage.

"I think it removes a great deal of the stigma," she said of the Obama administration's abandonment of a misguided law. "It's just great."

Imagine, New York, what Ms. Windsor might say when justice prevails here.

THE ISSUE:

The Obama administration's change in its position on gay marriage creates an opening.

THE STAKES:

It will be harder to resist equal rights here.

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