Thomas Duane

Thomas K. Duane (born January 30, 1955) is an American politician from New York, who served in the New York State Senate from 1999 to 2012.

Duane was the only openly gay member of the New York State Senate. He represented the 29th Senate District, which stretches along Manhattan's West Side from 85th Street to Canal Street, and includes the following neighborhoods: Upper West Side, Hell's Kitchen, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and part of the East Side, including the East Village, Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village and Waterside Plaza.

First elected to the Senate in 1998, he took office the following January and has won re-election every two years. He is the past Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, and he is currently that committee’s Ranking Minority Member.

His signature legislative accomplishments in the New York State legislature to date has been the passage of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) (2002) and Timothy's Law, which requires mental health parity for patients by insurance companies (2006) which were subsequently signed into law by Governor George Pataki.