New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made same-sex marriages legal in the state yesterday, a key victory for gay rights ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.
New York will become the sixth and most populous US state to allow same-sex marriage.
State senators voted 33-29 last night to approve marriage equality legislation and Mr Cuomo, a Democrat who had introduced the measure, signed it into law.
Same-sex ceremonies can start taking place in New York in 30 days, though religious institutions and nonprofit groups with religious affiliations will not be compelled to officiate them.
The legislation also gives gay couples the right to divorce.
Cheers erupted in the Senate gallery in the state capital Albany and among a crowd of several hundred people who gathered outside New York City's Stonewall Inn, where a police raid in 1969 sparked the modern gay rights movement.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an advocate for gay marriage who lobbied state lawmakers in recent weeks, said the vote was an 'historic triumph for equality and freedom.'
President Barack Obama, who attended a fund-raiser in New York on Thursday for Gay Pride Week, has a nuanced stance on gay issues.
Experts say he could risk alienating large portions of the electorate if he came out strongly in favor of such matters as gay marriage before the 2012 elections.
During the 2008 election, Mr Obama picked up important support from Evangelicals, Catholics, Latinos and African-Americans, some of whom oppose gay marriage, which has become a contentious social issue being fought state-by-state.
In California, a judge last year overturned a ban on gay marriage, and no weddings can take place while the decision is being appealed.
It could set national policy if the case reaches the US Supreme Court.
Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage, and Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey approved civil unions.
The first legal same-sex marriages in the US took place in Massachusetts in 2004.
But gay marriage is banned in 39 states.
In New York, a recent Siena poll found 58% of New Yorkers support gay marriage, while nationally the US public is nearly evenly split, with 45% in favor and 46% opposed, according to a Pew Research poll released last month.
New York City's marketing and tourism group NYC & Company said it was gearing up to turn the city into 'the gay weddings destination.'
'The new legislation is good news for the City's $31bn travel and tourism industry,' said NYC & Company Chief Executive George Fertitta.
