From the office of New York Senator Ruben Diaz (as published by the Albany Times Union):

In response to the news we broke yesterday that Time Warner Cable gave over $70,000 of free airtime to advocates of same-sex marriage, proponents of traditional marriage are demanding equal time.

“Many New Yorkers have been wondering why their cable bills continue to escalate. A portion of every subscriber’s bill is going to support liberal causes like gay ‘marriage.’ When families subscribe to a cable and internet provider, they are looking for service not to have their values sold out,” said the Rev. Jason McGuire, a lobbyist for New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms. “It is shocking to think that Time Warner would say ads promoting the most controversial issue to come before the State Legislature in decades were merely a public service announcement. I would hope that Time Warner would offer New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms a similar opportunity to freely promote the fact that kids deserve a mom and a dad,” McGuire concluded.

Time Warner officials told us they mistakenly thought the ads, produced by the Human Rights Campaign, were public service announcements.

Maggie Gallagher, co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage — which spent $300,000 on television advertisements lobbying against the same-sex marriage bill — agreed, and said Time Warner’s actions were “disturbing to say the least.”

“Time Warner clearly ought to give equal time to the millions of New Yorkers who believe it’s important to sustain marriage as the union of husband and wife, and to the New Yorkers now being asked to choose between their conscience and their jobs because of same-sex marriage,” Gallagher said. “The coverage by the news media on this issue is not remotely balanced–not a surprise just a fact — and the fact that a major corporation decided to weigh in on only one side of a controversial question about which its customers have many different views is disturbing to say the least.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the same-sex marriage law on June 24; it took effect several weeks ago.