Same-Sex Marriage: Archbishop Claims NY Gay Marriage Will Bring Polygamy
Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York who ran one of the most offensive and hate-filled anti-marriage equality campaigns last month, nevertheless culminating in the passage of Governor Cuomo’s same-sex marriage equality bill, now writes that he is “worried” that the New York same-sex marriage law will lead to polygamy, infidelity, and “the churches, and believers” being “hauled into court for their conviction that marriage is between one man, one woman, forever, bringing children into the world.”
Poppycock.
In, “Some Afterthoughts,” Dolan’s seven-plus point diatribe on The Archdiocese of New York’s blog, Dolan goes through a veritable journey through fear and loathing in New York, Dolan runs the gamut of misplaced homophobia, and Catholic victimhood.
Curiously leaving out Mormons, Dolan infuses the battle against marriage equality with race.
“You will understand my special word of gratitude to people of faith — evangelicals, Mennonites, Jews, Moslem, Catholics, Amish, and so many more, led often by African-American and Latino believers — who simply believe that marriage is a given, at the very foundation of civilization, which the state has the duty to defend and protect, not to mutate.”
Dolan exhibits his total inability to understand that the LGBT community doesn’t want to “mutate” marriage, we merely want to participate! In the 1950s, if a black child jumped into a “whites only” swimming pool, you could see the adults recoiling in horror, but did the pool “mutate?” No. Merely the perception of it did. Same pool. Same water. Same swimmers, sans the ones so offended they decided to jump out.
Dolan throughout cites nameless friends, journalists, parishioners whom he claims all support his “facts.” If they exist, no doubt they do. But has Dolan ever bothered to have a discussion with those with whom he disagrees? A The New Civil Rights Movement writer contact Dolan and was summarily dismissed.
Perhaps this is the one that is most-offensive. Archbishop Dolan claims that the “real forces of ‘intolerance’ were unmasked here.”
“The caricature, of course, is that those defending traditional marriage were the right-wing bigots and bullies. However, as one out-of-state journalist, who was following the debate closely, commented to me, “From my read of the columns, blogs, and rhetoric, it’s not your side that’s lobbing the grenades.†A Catholic who wrote to criticize me for my defense of marriage still conceded, “But I must confess that I am sickened by the amount of anti-Catholic venom that has surfaced in this debate.†As one respected columnist has observed, the problem is not homophobia but theophobia — a hatred by some of God, faith, religion, and the Church.”
Oh, so easy to wrap one’s self in Jesus, as Dolan does when he writes earlier, “We have been bloodied, and bruised, and, yes, for the moment, we have been defeated. But, we’re used to that. So was the Founder of our Church.”
This “hatred,” to use the Archbishop’s word, is not of God, not of faith, but of religions who usurp the true meaning of God and faith, the true intention, and claim to know best — by excluding large portions of society from the rights and benefits God and faith promise and provide.
Does Archbishop Dolan pretend he is unaware that his partner in religious-cum-political hatred, New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén DÃaz — who gleefully announced just days before the final marriage equality vote that the Archbishop had invited him to be a guest on the Archbishop’s radio show — did not attend a marriage rally during which another pastor told the attendees that gays are “worthy of death?” Did the Archbishop admonish New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén DÃaz for not denouncing cries for genocide? Did the Archbishop admonish New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén DÃaz for lying, using the Archbishop’s own words, to attack the gay community?
Tell me again whose acts are those of hatred?
The equation the Archbishop pretends is equal is not, not at all.
The Church has lost nothing. The stakes were, if marriage equality failed, the Church remained untouched. If marriage equality passed, the Church remained untouched. And so it has remained.
But for the LGBT community, indeed, for all who care about our constitutional democracy and about equality, the stakes were far greater. If marriage equality failed, not only would we have lost the potential to partake in one of the most-important institutions of life, but our fight nationwide would have lost major ground. Hundreds of thousands of children would continue to live with less protections and with less support, and the message to all would have been that the LGBT community isn’t important.
Does the Archbishop pretend he did not call same-sex marriage equality “unjust and immoral,†and “perilous?”
Does this win for equality change anything for the Church? Do they lose freedoms, tax benefits, parishioners, money, stature? No.
No doubt Dolan’s confidante “out-of-state journalist” was reading New York Times’ op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd at the time. Dowd wrote, “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.”
“If God and nature are so clear about what marriage is, why do the well-connected have an easier time getting the church to sunder their marriages with annulments? (Yes, we’re talking about you, Newt Gingrich.)
“In his blog, “The Gospel in the Digital Age,†Dolan invokes not just God but Orwell, denouncing the “perilous presumption of the state†in reinventing the definition of marriage, which, he says, “has served as the very cornerstone of civilization and culture from the start.â€
“The Starchbishop noted with asperity that “Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America — not in China or North Korea,†where “communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of ‘family’ and ‘marriage’ means.â€
“Yeah. Not like the Vatican.
“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?â€
“And how about the right of a child not to be molested by the parish priest?
“Dolan acts like getting married (when done by gays) is a self-indulgent act of hedonism when it’s really a leap of faith and a promise of fidelity.”
I should point out that Dolan “apologizes” to the gay community, (using the “if” apology,) saying,”if we did hurt anybody in our defense of marriage, I apologize. We tried our best to insist from the start that our goal was pro-marriage, never anti-gay. But, I’m afraid some within the gay community were offended. As I replied recently to a reporter who asked if I had any message to the gay community, “Yes: I love you. Each morning I pray with and for you and your true happiness and well-being. I am honored that so many of you are at home within our Catholic family, where, like the rest of us, we try, with the help of God’s grace and mercy, to conform our lives to Jesus and His message. If I have offended any of you in my strenuous defense of marriage, I apologize, and assure you it was unintentional.”
Apology not accepted, because I know you would do it again, and will.
On Dolan’s post, “Some Afterthoughts,” I left the following comment.
“And now we ring the steeple bell again at this latest dilution of the authentic understanding of marriage, worried that the next step will be another redefinition to justify multiple partners and infidelity.â€
Really, Archbishop? Is polygamy the law of the land now in the first state to honor marriage equality, Massachusetts – which boasts the lowest divorce rate in the U.s.? What about in Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Washington, D.C.? What about in the U.K.?
What about in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain,or Sweden, all of whom honor marriage equality?
No. Polygamy is a straw horse, a false slippery-slope argument. You have nothing to back it up.
What the Church refuses to understand is that same-sex couples want marriage for the exact same reasons opposite-sex couples do. We honor the sanctity of marriage. Why can’t you?
Indeed.
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News
‘Height of Irresponsibility’: Top LGBTQ Civil Rights Group Slams House Republicans Over Shutdown and ‘Politics of Hate’
The nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization on Monday released a 30-second TV ad attacking House Republicans for their “politics of hate” and for bring the federal government to the edge of a shutdown. The government will shut down unless the House can pass legislation to keep it open, legislation the Senate would have to vote on and pass, and President Joe Biden would have to sign, all before midnight on September 30.
“You sent your representative to Washington to work on behalf of everyday Americans, like you. But House Republicans spent the summer trying to divide us and failing to pass essential spending bills,” says the voiceover on the Human Rights Campaign‘s ad, expected to air nationwide according to The Hill.
“Instead, they’re trying to limit the health care you and your family can access, ban books and flags and block enforcement of civil rights laws, all while risking the government grinding to a halt.”
“Tell Congress to reject the politics of hate and get back to work,” the video adds.
“In addition to attaching numerous anti-LGBTQ+ provisions to their draft spending bills,” HRC adds in a press release, “the legislative attacks from Republicans in the House of Representatives also include stand-alone bills such as H.R. 734 — a nationwide ban on transgender students playing sports — as well as larger legislative packages like H.R. 5, which included book bans and provisions stigmatizing transgender students. The new ad from HRC, which will air nationwide, calls on voters to contact members and tell them to stand with the American people, reject the extremism of those like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, and take action to prevent a shutdown.”
“A shutdown is the height of irresponsibility and would interrupt critical government services, hurt working families, and endanger our national security,” said Kelley Robinson, President of the Human Rights Campaign. “This outcome was entirely avoidable, but House Republicans have instead hijacked the appropriations process to attack LGBTQ+ communities rather than doing their jobs. It’s past time for them to stop pushing an extremist agenda that’s a danger to us all.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
News
‘Careening’ Toward ‘Risk of Political Violence’: Experts Sound Alarm After Trump Floats Executing His Former General
Political experts are sounding alarms after Donald Trump‘s weekend of attacks on the military and the media, with some cautioning America is “not just careening toward a significant risk of political violence around the 2024 presidential election. It’s also mostly oblivious to where it’s headed.”
Friday evening the ex-president said General Mark Milley, the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whom he appointed to that role, “in times gone by” would have been executed for treason.
Trump wrote, “if the Fake News reporting is correct,” General Milley “was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act.”
READ MORE: Gaetz Praises GOP Congressman Who Echoes His Call for Change ‘Through Force’
Foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst David Rothkopf Sunday night warned, “Trump this weekend indicated military leaders who opposed his policies should be put to death and media that presented views he did not like are traitors and will be prosecuted. He is a monster, an aspiring dictator, the greatest threat America faces.”
Sunday evening Trump had also attacked NBC News and MSNBC, along with their parent company, Comcast, all by name. He wrote in part: “I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events.”
“Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!” Trump said on his social media platform.
Professor of global politics and political scientist Brian Klass at The Atlantic wrote on Monday that General Milley’s phone call to China “was, in fact, explicitly authorized by Trump-administration officials.”
“And yet,” Klass noted, “none of the nation’s front pages blared ‘Trump Suggests That Top General Deserves Execution’ or ‘Former President Accuses General of Treason.’ Instead, the post barely made the news. Most Americans who don’t follow Trump on social media probably don’t even know it happened.”
Klass is also warning that America has become “numb” to these attacks.
“Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous, not just because it is the exact sort that incites violence against public officials but also because it shows just how numb the country has grown toward threats more typical of broken, authoritarian regimes. The United States is not just careening toward a significant risk of political violence around the 2024 presidential election. It’s also mostly oblivious to where it’s headed.”
Juliette Kayyem, a lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a CNN national security analyst Monday morning observed: “To view each of Trump’s calls to violence in isolation — ‘he attacked Milley,’ or ‘he attacked NBC,’ or ‘he attacked the jury, the prosecutor, the judge ‘ — is to miss his overall plan to ‘introduce() violence as a natural extension of our democratic disagreement.'”
Kayyem, a former Asst. Secretary at the Dept. of Homeland Security and a terrorism expert, pointed to her own piece at The Atlantic from July.
“The language” Trump and his allies “are using is filled with words of war, elevating concerns among terrorism experts and security planners that Trump’s supporters pose the same threat of violence that they did before the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol,” Kayyem wrote.
READ MORE: ‘Vulgar and Lewd’: Trump Judge Cites Extremist Group to Allow Drag Show Ban
Klass again sounded the alarm on complacency:
“Bombarded by a constant stream of deranged authoritarian extremism from a man who might soon return to the presidency, we’ve lost all sense of scale and perspective. But neither the American press nor the public can afford to be lulled. The man who, as president, incited a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in order to overturn an election is again openly fomenting political violence while explicitly endorsing authoritarian strategies should he return to power. That is the story of the 2024 election. Everything else is just window dressing.”
The fate of the $250 million Manhattan fraud trial brought against Donald Trump and his Trump Organization by New York Attorney General Letitia James could be determined in two separate court rulings this week with one legal insider claiming Trump shouldn’t get his hopes up.
What is at stake is an expected Tuesday ruling from Judge Arthur F. Engoron on what charges he will accept against the former president for massively overstating the value of his properties, and a “Hail Mary” bid to the appeals court to delay the trial or dismiss it altogether with a deciosn expected on Thursday.
According to a report from the New York Times, Engoron is set to make his ruling after a contentious hearing last Friday where he repeatedly chastised the former president’s legal team and abruptly cut them off.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
That led former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner to suggest on Sunday that the future of the fraud case does not look good for Trump’s legal team.
Kirschner told MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart, “He [Engoron] called those arguments ‘borderline frivolous.’ He was considering sanctions against Donald Trump’s attorney,” and later added, “I don’t think that hearing went all that well for Trump.”
As for the appeals court, the Times is reporting, “Mr. Trump’s lawsuit — and in turn the fate of Ms. James’s case against him — hinges on a passage in the June appeals court ruling that has become a legal Rorschach test of sorts, in which each side sees what they want. Mr. Trump’s lawyers are convinced that the June ruling effectively tossed out the claims against him, while Ms. James’s team has argued that it had little effect on the accusation at the heart of her case — that Mr. Trump overstated his net worth by billions of dollars in his annual financial statements.”
After noting that, should the appeals court side with Trump, it would likely delay or “defang the case before the trial even begins,” the Times is reporting that some legal experts aren’t expecting Trump’s legal team to come out on top.
According to David B. Saxe, who previously served nearly on the same appeals court, “I think it won’t fare well.”
You can read more here.
‘It Won’t Fare Well’: Legal Expert Trashes Trump’s Hopes for ‘Hail Mary’ Appeal This Week
‘Careening’ Toward ‘Risk of Political Violence’: Experts Sound Alarm After Trump Floats Executing His Former General
‘Height of Irresponsibility’: Top LGBTQ Civil Rights Group Slams House Republicans Over Shutdown and ‘Politics of Hate’
‘Height of Irresponsibility’: Top LGBTQ Civil Rights Group Slams House Republicans Over Shutdown and ‘Politics of Hate’
‘Careening’ Toward ‘Risk of Political Violence’: Experts Sound Alarm After Trump Floats Executing His Former General
‘It Won’t Fare Well’: Legal Expert Trashes Trump’s Hopes for ‘Hail Mary’ Appeal This Week
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‘Scared to Death’: Trump’s Prison Panic Admission Means He Knows He’s Doomed Says Legal Expert
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