ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Gov. Eliot Spitzer pledged Monday to introduce legislation in the next few weeks that would legalize same-sex marriage in New York, even while conceding the state Legislature was not ready to agree with him on the issue.

“I do not think there is a realistic shot that it gets passed, but I will submit it because it’s a statement of principle that I believe in and I want to begin that dynamic,” Spitzer said.

Spitzer’s move speeds up his timetable for putting the issue in front of state lawmakers. While the New York Democrat had pledged during his campaign for governor last year to propose such legislation, he had subsequently said only that he would do so before the end of his first four-year term.

Spitzer said Monday that he had decided it was time to press ahead with the issue.

Spitzer had previously announced his legislative priorities, including an overhaul of New York’s campaign finance law, for the remainder of the Legislature’s regular 2007 session that is to conclude in late June. He had not included same-sex marriage among those priorities.

Spitzer explained that his earlier list of priorities was based on “the art of the possible.”

Thus far, state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, has not taken a position on same-sex marriage while Joseph Bruno, the state Senate’s Republican majority leader, has said he is opposed.

Spitzer had said he expects a multi-year battle over the marriage issue.

Currently, same-sex marriage is only legal in the United States in Massachusetts.

Spitzer’s plan to quickly move ahead on the same-sex marriage issue was first reported in Monday’s editions of The New York Times.