David Bass writes at the American Spectator:
So, New York has a $10 billion budget deficit, and what's preoccupying Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature? Redefining civil marriage to include same-sex couples.
That betrays an inglorious double standard in liberalism and the media. When Republican-controlled legislatures enact pro-life or pro-family laws during the Great Recession, they've veered off course from a focus on fiscal priorities. If liberals do it, they get a pass.
It appears Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo are not the only ones more interested in the right, than in exercizing it:
Bryan Lowder, a 23-year-old journalism student at New York University, had just completed the annual "Drag March" of all kinds of cross-dressers with his partner of two years, Cam McDonald, when they encountered the celebration of the new law outside the Stonewall Inn, which occupies the same space in Sheridan Square as the predecessor establishment of the same name.
"I felt pretty ambivalent, I have to say," said Lowder. "It's definitely not something I'm unhappy about." But he wondered about the appropriateness of only extending new rights to gay people who embraced the specific model of heterosexual marriage. "Of course there are many other kinds of relationships, especially within queer culture, whether it's open relationships or nonsexual companionship or polyamorous relationships. These nontraditional relationships have been championed in the gay community in the past, and I do think all types of relationships should be honored, and not just the people who fit this model."
Lowder's 29-year-old partner shared all of his ambivalence. "I suppose I do think the right to marry should exist," said McDonald. "Which is not the same thing as saying that I'm interested in exercising it. I'm not sure it threatens our identity -- that there's actually a danger that we're going to stop being different. I think that will persist. But I think it's a little sad that what we've devoted ourselves to here is, at its core, about transfers of wealth and property."
Reuters reports:
Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich on Saturday said the adoption of same-sex marriage in New York showed the nation is "drifting toward a terrible muddle."
Saying he thinks marriage is between a man and a woman, he told reporters that he "would like to find ways to defend that view as legitimately and effectively as possible."
He said he thinks the nation should be defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage ass being between a man and a woman.
In February, the Obama administration decided it would no longer defend the 15-year-old law.
"I think the president should be, frankly, enforcing that act, and I think we are drifting toward a terrible muddle which I think is going to be very, very difficult and painful to work our way out of," he said.
John Vecchione writes at FrumForum that, no, David Frum had it right the first time - back when he believed in "conjugal marriage":
David Frum has now thrown in the towel on same sex “marriage”. In point of fact his original view was correct. This conjugal view of marriage is the conservative position and easily defended by those with the wit and heart to do so.
... In New York the damage to the Republican Party will be lasting and swift. If a Republican controlled Senate does not stop same sex marriage, and indeed calls it an emergency measure and passes it with the skullduggery we have come to expect from all gay rights victory of this decade-there is no reason for social conservatives to support the party. The news outlets have been crowing about the moneyed Republican gay rights elites fixing this deal.
The non-moneyed, non-elites have votes. They know who caved and they will react by ousting them or staying home. Either will destroy what is left of the Republican Party in New York. New York now stands as a test case for the idea that a socially liberal Republican Party will be a stronger Republican Party. The New York Republican Party could hardly be weaker — but weaker it will be. They will lose the Senate in the next election. The only redoubt of the Party in the State has been punted to support a policy that is a priority only for those who hate Republicans and conservatives with the fiercest intensity. The dim merits of same sex marriage aside this was politically idiotic.
... Mr. Frum’s change of heart on this issue seems to be because same sex marriage in a few states has not lead to family Armageddon. Why is that the standard? Are conservatives only allowed to oppose something if it creates an absolute catastrophe, or are they allowed to oppose policies that marginally injure important institutions?
... his is the view that marriage has already been destroyed by the consequences of the 60’s so who cares? I adhere to the view that liberalism can always make a bad situation worse, particularly if its view is codified.
The rest is well worth reading too!
A Swedish preschool has eliminated gendered pronouns from its curriculum. Becuase 1-year-olds should be whatever they want to be!
In accordance with a national school curriculum that seeks to fight the “stereotyping” of gender roles, a preschool in the Sodermalm district of Stockholm has incorporated a gender-free pedagogy that eliminates any reference to gender completely.
Staff at the “Egalia” preschool avoid using words like “him” or “her” and instead address the 30 or so boys and girls, aged 1 to 6 years, as “friends.”
... The Swedish pronouns “han” and “hon” (him and her), for instance, have been replaced in the school by the genderless “hen,” a made-up word that doesn’t exist in Swedish but is used extensively by feminists and homosexuals.
... There are also no traditional children’s books such as Snow White, Cinderella or the classic fairy tales, Rajalin said. The shelves instead have books that deal with homosexual couples, single parents, adopted children, and treatises on “new ways to play.”
“A concrete example could be when they’re playing house and the role of the mom already is taken and they start to squabble,” Rajalin said. “Then wesuggest two moms or three moms and so on.” --LifeSiteNews
In National Review:
According to a New York Times story of June 25, an essential part of the coalition that brought “gay marriage” to the Empire State consisted of Republican financial high-rollers who gave Republican legislators cover for voting in favor of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “marriage equality” bill while generously funding the pro–“gay marriage” ground campaign, and who “were inclined to see the issue as one of personal freedom, consistent with their more libertarian views.”
More intellectual and political confusion would be hard to pack into one sentence.
“Gay marriage” in fact represents a vast expansion of state power: In this instance, the state of New York is declaring that it has the competence to redefine a basic human institution in order to satisfy the demands of an interest group looking for the kind of social acceptance that putatively comes from legal recognition. But as Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York and others argued during the days before the fateful vote on June 24, the state of New York does not have such competence, and the assertion that it does casts an ominous shadow over the future. For if the state in fact has the competence, or authority, to declare that Adam and Steve, or Eve and Evelyn, are married, and has the related authority to compel others to recognize such marriages as the equivalent of what we have known as marriage for millennia, then why stop at marriage between two men or two women? Why not polyamory or polygamy? Why can’t any combination of men and women sharing financial resources and body parts declare itself a marriage, and then demand from the state a redress of its grievances and legal recognition of it as a family? On what principled ground is the New York state legislature, or any other state legislature, going to say “No” to that, once it has declared that Adam and Steve, or Eve and Evelyn, can in fact get married according to the laws of the state?
... And that is an exercise of power that libertarians ought, in theory, to resist, not support.
On the offensive in Iowa:
Last November, state voters in Iowa ousted three of the judges who approved the ruling that legalized homosexual nuptials, while Republicans picked up six seats in the state Senate. Then, this February, the state House of Representatives voted 62-37 in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships.
... to traditional marriage supporters, Iowa was never a lost cause. Most polls do not show a majority of support for homosexual “marriage” in the Hawkeye State. Furthermore, it was the state Supreme Court, not the state legislature, which granted homosexual couples the right to marry.
... While Democrats had held a 32-18 advantage in [the state Senate], their advantage is 26-24 this session. “The Republican leadership is very committed to overturning the ruling. All of them are,” he said.
If state Republicans can regain control of the upper chamber next fall, and keep their majority in the House, they could vote to ban gay marriage in 2013 and 2015. The measure to amend the state constitution would then go to voters. --LifeSiteNews
That headline from CNSNews.com:
As New York enacted a law late Friday that legalizes same-sex marriage in the state, the Roman Catholic bishops of New York released a statement saying they now expect efforts to enact laws that go after churches that insist on teaching the "timeless truths" about marriage and family.
... we just as strongly affirm that marriage is the joining of one man and one woman in a lifelong, loving union that is open to children, ordered for the good of those children and the spouses themselves," the bishops said. "This definition cannot change, though we realize that our beliefs about the nature of marriage will continue to be ridiculed, and that some will even now attempt to enact government sanctions against churches and religious organizations that preach these timeless truths."
On Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace:
NRO's Kathryn Lopez interviews NOM Chairman Maggie Gallagher on New York, and the next steps in the fight to win marriage:
NOM’s next immediate challenge is to get a vote reversing gay marriage in New Hampshire — to show once again, as we did in Maine, that history is not unidirectional.
In New York, we have to demonstrate once and for all that it is a very bad idea to vote for gay marriage if you are a Republican. Dede Scozzafava was not enough, apparently. Okay. If that’s what we have to do, it’s what we have to do.
Fundamentally, we are also going to need a large anti-defamation project behind the gay-marriage line, to locate the many people now feeling silenced and harassed and create for them a legal and cultural environment where people have a shot at passing on a Christian (or other traditional) marriage culture to their own kids and in their own communities. I’m getting e-mails and phone calls from people losing their jobs because they spoke up for marriage as one man and one woman. Extraordinary!
It's good to see that some gay writers are willing to admit the obvious:
Is it possible that Obama has not yet come out in favor of full-on federal marriage equality because if he does, his opponents can say that he opposes the will of the majority?
Even LGBT organizers agree that they’d rather pass marriage equality by legislature than at the ballot because at the ballot WE ALWAYS LOSE.
People who oppose the ballot also like saying that if America voted on interracial marriage in the 60s, that still might be illegal too. But is that really our only defense against the ballot argument? If so, it’s no wonder that Obama hasn’t articulated a reason to support marriage that doesn’t fly in the face of the democratic process that had denied us our rights. --Queerty
On FOX News Sunday this weekend Brit Hume and Juan Williams talked about the ramifications of the NY SSM vote:
Via The Daily Caller, the key quote from Juan Williams:
"And in the [African American] community Williams explained that same-sex marriage is a threat to the black family according to some.“
[T]o me, you know I think very threatening and socially upsetting to people – the black family is just in bad shape right now anyway,” Williams said. “But the idea that you are giving the imprimatur of the church and of the society to two men marrying just doesn’t make sense to a lot of people who are not technically your people – the conservatives.”
Kathryn Lopez in NRO's The Corner:
Pollster John McLaughlin, who is based in his native New York, raises the question: “If they had brought the gay marriage bill to a public referendum, I don’t think it would have passed.”
He continues:
No state has ever passed it via referendum. Even California saw Proposition 8 fail. The fact that Governor Cuomo pushed it through without a referendum, which would have taken two consecutive years for the legislature to authorize, just shows that he and his allies were concerned that it wouldn’t pass — especially if it faced a two-year public debate.
Gay marriage often over-polls its approval levels. People sense the media is pro-gay-marriage and either say they are for it or undecided, when they are not. Prop 8 failed due to majority African American, Latino, and Asian American opposition. A New York referendum would have been very important. Now we’ll never know.
