Anti-gay extremists in Albany for vote today
Posted on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at 10:21 AM
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Take a look at this picture. These are the people fighting to 'protect' marriage in Albany this morning.
Form left to right it's a rogues gallery of anti-gay extremists. The man cut off on the left side is Rabbi Yehuda Levin, the Orthodox political player on record for calling gays 'moral terrorists' and for blaming them for the Haitian earthquake and even 9/11.
Couldn't get an appointment at the salon? Your stylist was probably busy cooking up another international outrage, apparently.
Levin is so extreme he actually defected from Carl Palidino's disastrous campaign after he apologized for hateful speech he made against gay people.
Standing next to Levin is the Reverend Duane Motley. Motley is Senior Lobbyist for the New Yorker’s Family Research Foundation, a man who recently gave a sermon calling this civil rights movement a war, with churches as recruiting stations, and the Bible as a weapon to pulverize his enemies.
"If you're going to get in this war, what do you have to do? There's two things you have to have in any war. Number one you have to have some soldiers. So in this culture war I'm talking about, the soldiers we need have to be Christians. Christians are the soldiers we're looking for. Number two, in a war you have to have weapons. But the weapons are a different kind than we are familiar with. These are not hardware, these are not guns and tanks and bombs planes and that sort of thing. The weapons in this war are words. They're ideas and actions in the public policy arena, where you seldom find Christians involved. We avoid public policy. Which we shouldn't.'
War, soldiers, weapons. What sort of Christianity does this individual think he represents?
'A soldier must know is what the mission is,' said Motley. The mission in this case is to defeat Satan's army.'
I suppose you should expect as much from a man who's surname was used by Shakespeare to denote a fool.
Next to Motley is Bishop Joseph Mattera. He's on record claiming that gays have a 'deathstyle.' That Adolf Hitler was pro-gay. That being gay is a 'choice.' And that tolerating gays is one of the five things that Satan wants you to do.
Enough said about Mattera.
Then there's Maggie Gallager herself, the woman who thinks being gay is a sexual dysfunction and a sin. She has made defeating every legal advance the gay community makes her life's work.
And to her right is newly minted spokesman David Tyree. Don't worry, I didn't know who he was either until NOM promoted him last week. Tyree believes that marriage equality for gays will lead to anarchy. Clearly he hasn't been to Connecticut in months. Tyree is consumed with the idea that gay people enjoying legal equality will affect his own marriage in unspecified ways.
These people are right wing anti-gay extremists. They're on record for being so. They are out of touch with the mainstream. Let's hope we don't hand them another victory today.
35 Comments
15 - 35 | See all comments
olovely | Jun 30, 2011, 06:24 PM EDT
Heterosexuals enjoy sex as their nature intended; homosexuals enjoy sex as their nature nature intended. That's nature's way. When people like Geroid4 bang on about 'natural law' they really mean is 'my laws' overrule 'your laws.' But that doesn't mean they're natural at all.
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olovely | Jun 30, 2011, 06:20 PM EDT
Telling other people they can't do what you do becuase you persoanlly don't like it usually does mean you're a bigot, Sharlot.
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sharlot | Jun 27, 2011, 10:58 AM EDT
Agree with Gearoid4; I am pro traditional marriage, but am not an "anti-gay bigot"; I have have several gay friends and aquaintances that I love and admire very much; having an opinion on something as important as marriage does not mean I am a bigot!!
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Gearoid4 | Jun 25, 2011, 11:59 PM EDT
The arrangement that has been passed into law is not pro-marriage but rather a parody of it. Such a transgression against the natural law does not bode well for the future.
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mamaginnty | Jun 25, 2011, 05:48 PM EDT
All I am going to say is, I am in Ireland and will welcome anyone who has come out of the closet, they have suffered enough for decades. Most of you anti-gay..can stay away. Eiriamach I totally agree with you.
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eiriamach | Jun 25, 2011, 07:30 AM EDT
It must be very frustrating to be so in love with the past. The future looks brighter today, since the NYS Senate passed the marriage equality bill into law last night and the governor will soon sign it. Take a step forward and notice that some people are breathing in a little more freedom today than they could yesterday. And that's a good thing for everyone. Today, it's more like the world I want to live in, where no one has a basis in law for excluding anyone else from the benefits they enjoy as citizens of a free society. Gearoid4 can continue to defend his vision of marriage-- no one will interfere with his freedom to do so. But by the same token, in NYS he can no longer impose that vision on anyone who finds it a remnant of the past, unfair and exclusionary.
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Gearoid4 | Jun 24, 2011, 05:30 PM EDT
This is not one man's opinion as you call it but the stated verifiable fact that marriage constitutes the union of one man and one woman. Across countless centuries multiple cultures differing in ethnicity or religion have ceremoniously honored this marital union with rites which celebrated the love of the couple and potential for procreation. I don't think one needs a moral consensus to arrive at the above conclusion. To preserve this understanding is not to deliberately discriminate against anyone but rather to maintain the unique bond which the marital union bestows.
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eiriamach | Jun 24, 2011, 05:14 PM EDT
Gearoid4, you're spin doctoring AB Dolan's words: "Marriage ... 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." AB Dolan defies common sense, however. A statement like "marriage is a union of a man and a woman" is not like a claim about scientific fact, today's weather, or human history. It's a claim about what Dolan thinks ought to be forever. If we mistake it as simply a statement of historical fact, then we eventually discover that it is false because in US states like Massachusetts and several other nations, some marriages are not male/female (and they have done no harm). Dolan is talking about what he thinks OUGHT to be, not about what "is," as a scientist does, for ex., when she says, "This microbe 'is' an E-coli bacterium." No microscopes or telescopes help us here, and there's no evidence to be gathered in support of a "Marriage is...." statement. Our challenge is to create a moral consensus, to make a decision together, and Americans have done that. We consider current law discriminatory and believe we ought to extend the civil benefits of marriage to gays. Now it's time to change the law (i.e., to create a new, more just and inclusive history of marriage) to reflect what we believe "is" fair and "ought" to prevail.
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Gearoid4 | Jun 24, 2011, 03:14 PM EDT
Eiriamach, marriage cannot be redefined into something that it isn't i.e same-sex wedding by popular vote or legislation. The historical reality behind the commonly held understanding that it constitutes a sacred convenant between a man and a woman across centuries,cultures and religions should ensure this.
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eiriamach | Jun 23, 2011, 12:51 PM EDT
Editor, I DID NOT WRITE the postings below under my name at 9:40 and 9:25 on 6/23. I did write the others with my name. But since you've removed the posting that my 9:39 replied to, you should also remove my 9:39. Thanks.
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eiriamach | Jun 23, 2011, 11:08 AM EDT
"... for Vote Today" has been in Cahir's title for three days now and there's still no vote. Maybe today? Not all Christian churches consider marriage a sacrament in the full sense. Only baptism and the Eucharist are gospel-sourced sacraments. For most, marriage is a "sacramental rite" in which a priest/ minister blesses the couple's civil union. In any case, the couple themselves confer the sacrament, not the officiating priest. If the church's role is limited to blessing, then it has no rationale for controlling the sexual life of the couple. This is likely one reason why Catholic marriages have declined by 60% since the Vatican and bishops began issuing frequent rules on sex and marriage. Couples are choosing to be married in churches that respect freedom of conscience rather than churches with doctrines on pre-marital sex, contraception, prohibited forms of sexual activity, etc. For a church to consider contraception and committed gay unions sinful seems "extreme" to many people of conscience, including most Catholics. @AngelPrecious, in October 2010, 58% of Catholics aged 18-46 favored same-sex marriage (a 9% increase over 2009), and the percentage has been steadily rising, according to Pew Forum research.
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| Jun 23, 2011, 09:40 AM EDT
As for the absurdly named AngelPrecious, how do you get to be an adult and not know that marriage is also a civil contract, that offers thousands of legal protections - as well as being a "sacrament," which can mean meany things to many religions. Marriage is not necessarily a religious contract at all. Gays want the civil contract and the legal protections - in no country with gay marriage have they tried to force a religious leader to marry them. So keep you 'sacraments' to yourself AngelPrecious, you live in a democracy where we value equality.
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hollabackgurl | Jun 23, 2011, 09:25 AM EDT
Gearoid4, you're argument falls flat when we realize that other nations have marriage equality without negative consequence and indeed with multiple positive ones for the couples involved. Anti-gay commentators lose the argument because all they have to offer is a) I don't like it b) My God doesn't like it and c) I think I know better than everyone else.
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eiriamach | Jun 22, 2011, 09:39 PM EDT
"Extremist"? Is everyone who wants the right to marry in New York "extremist"? Some people who comment here are claiming that marriage is an ancient institution. Human beings have been marrying each other, like, forever. What could be more traditional? Marriage is as "extremist" as peanut butter on a bagel.
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