NY Archbishop Blinded By Religion, NY Governor Sees Equality For Gays

“There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.”

– John Heywood, 1546

 

A visit to a local food pantry, a Yankees baseball game, and a bilingual sermon ushered in the installation last week of 59 year old Timothy Dolan as New York City’s Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church. But the day before he began his new post, he came out swinging, ready to fight against gay marriage, saying, “You can bet I will be active and present and, I hope, articulate in this position.” Dolan has referred to gay marriage as a “detriment to civilization.”

Dolan has said of gays, “We love them” and, “We would defend their rights”. Additionally, when the Vatican issued a document barring gays from the priesthood in 2005, Dolan said that the Vatican’s directive was “not a no-gays policy”, and allowed men with same-sex inclinations to be ordained as long as they observed celibacy and did not belong to a gay subculture. He has also said he will challenge any suggestion that Catholics are unenlightened because they oppose gay marriage.

Now, consider David Paterson, New York’s 55 year old Governor, who Thursday, surrounded by dozens of New York lawmakers and community leaders, announced his plan to make gay marriage legal in New York State. Paterson, who is only the second African American governor in the United States, is legally blind, and called gay marriage a civil rights issue. He compared the struggle for equality gays and lesbians experience to that of the African American civil rights battle, from the 1857 Dred Scott decision, to the abolition of slavery, and recalled the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

Saying that “these issues are not common just to one group… all of us know the indignation that one feels from a being victim of discrimination … any disabled person who has been mocked or marginalized understands what we’re talking about here,” Paterson was able to connect with people of all races, all backgrounds, all faiths, gay, Catholic, Jewish, atheist, disabled, Hispanic, female, any group at all.

Funny, how a blind, black politician can see his people so clearly, yet a man of God sees only the politics of religion.