By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
Insiders say a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New York is just one vote short of passing and could come to the floor for a vote as early as Thursday of this week.
The New York Times is reporting that a second Republican hold-out, Roy J. McDonald, said yesterday that he would support the measure if a vote takes place this week. The current tally shows proponents of the bill having 31 of 62 possible votes with one more vote needed by law to approve the bill. If it passes the Senate, it will move to the Assembly where it has passed several times before.
The bill allows same-sex couples from anywhere in the nation to marry in New York beginning 30 days from passage. It also includes a provision that exempts religious institutions from any obligation to solemnize or provide facilities for the unions, which was a sticking point for Republicans in both houses.
Advocates and opponents of the bill are said to be “swarming the halls” of the Capitol as the bill moves closer to a vote.
New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan posted a blistering blog on the Archdiocesan website yesterday, warning people about “this perilous presumption of the state to re-invent the very definition of an undeniable truth – one man, one woman, united in lifelong love and fidelity, hoping for children – that has served as the very cornerstone of civilization and culture . . . ”
He adds: ” 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. In those countries, government presumes daily to ‘redefine’ rights, relationships, values, and natural law. There, 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. But, please, not here!”
He goes on to explain that our country’s founding principles speak of rights given by God, not invented by governments, and of values such as life, home, family, faith, marriage, that are protected – not redefined – by the state.
“We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought; we acknowledge that not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a ‘right.’ And, what about other rights, like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad?”
To those who accuse the Church of discrimination because they teach that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, he says: “This is not about denying rights. It is about upholding a truth about the human condition. Marriage is not simply a mechanism for delivering benefits: It is the union of a man and a woman in a loving, permanent, life-giving union to pro-create children. Please don’t vote to change that. If you do, you are claiming the power to change what is not into what is, simply because you say so. This is false, it is wrong, and it defies logic and common sense.”
A vote on the bill could take place either Thursday or Friday of this week.
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