Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Observations on Gay Marriage and New York

So yet we have another day of wondering if the Republicans who control the New York State Senate will allow a vote on the gay marriage bill. A week ago I hoped for passage but now I honestly would be happy with a vote and absolutely ecstatic if it passed. Personally I have no desire to marry but as I told somebody a couple days ago I want the right not to marry. I want the right to look at you, think you’re cute, and think it might be a good idea but not now, not yet. Maybe the Senate will do what's right and vote on the bill today but I'm not going to hold my breath.

At the moment my thoughts are more on the opponents of the bill than on the bill itself. More specifically on the Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan who has in the past week done more to strengthen my atheistic side than anybody in recent memory. In a recent blog post Dolan said 'traditional marriage' must not include gays because God, "human reason and ordered good" demand it. Marriage is not for the queers because it is "the union of a man and a woman in a loving, permanent, life-giving union to pro-create children." Let me just say I find it very easy to look at a photo of Dolan in his vestments, strip away the scarlet, and picture him in the gleaming white robes of a Ku Klux Klan wizard.

I briefly touched on Dolan in an earlier post when I wrote "With a vote on same sex marriage in New York just days away Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan is seeking to stop the vote from even taking place. "We acknowledge that not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a 'right.'" said Dolan. While it's nice to know I might be considered chic in the eyes of the Catholic Church it still pisses me off." I tried to be calm, I really did, and I didn't write a thousand words on how I honestly feel about the Catholic Church and its practices through history. As with any large organization there is good, there is bad, and there is the Inquisition. It would be so easy to write that post but I'm going to stop before I even start because it wouldn't do anybody any good.

In Sunday's New York Times Maureen Dowd wrote her column on the 'Starchbishop' as she calls Dolan. Only in my dreams could I write a piece as succinct as this so I will pass on my favorite quotes from it and than just leave a link.

"The church refuses to acknowledge the hypocrisy at its heart: that it became a haven for gay priests even though it declares homosexual sex a sin, and even though it lobbies to stop gays from marrying."

"In the same blog, Dolan snidely dismissed the notion that gay marriage is a civil right. “We acknowledge that not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a ‘right,’ ” he wrote. “And, what about other rights, like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad?” And how about the right of a child not to be molested by the parish priest?"

As I said in my earlier post, it just might be time to pull out those heavy weapons.

"The Archbishop vs. the Governor: Gay Sera, Sera" 
by Maureen Dowd