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
eiriamach | Jun 22, 2011, 12:35 PM EDT
Add to the list of extremists the name of Michael Long, Conservative Party chairperson in New York State. Long is calling for the NY Senate to suppress the bill because-- uh?-- the senators might pass it! If he doesn't like a possible outcome of the democratic process, he'll try to halt the democratic process. According to the NY Post, "'Once again, we urge you to stand strong for traditional marriage and not put a bill on the floor,' Long said. 'Any bill that will harm our state should not be allowed a vote.'” He also threatened Republican Senators. He will "strip the party's endorsement from any Republican senator" who votes yes on the marriage equality bill.
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eiriamach | Jun 22, 2011, 11:23 AM EDT
Fran asks, "WTF does this have to do with IRISH central?" Here are a few points of relevance-- what such topics reveal about Irish and Americans who identify themselves as Irish: 1) New York State has not caught up with the Republic of Ireland in protecting the civil and human rights of LGBTs, and that fact is unacceptable to many of us. 2) Some comments below are insulting to gay and lesbian visitors to IC, comments such as "Thankfull that I can't be pressured into preforming a GAY marrage," "Liberals are immoral bigots," "every civilized society since the dawn of man has held that marriage is an institution between a man and a woman," and "I think they [gays] should go back to the closet !!" Derogatory comments should be repudiated. 3) The same comments misrepresent visitors to Irish Central as intolerant and unChristian whereas we are NOT ALL intolerant or unChristian. 4) Such comments, together with demands such as Fran's that IC just shut up about this issue, tend to impose silence on those who are not ultra-conservative; they attempt to drive away liberals, progressives, Christians and other tolerant individuals in order to maintain the delusion that IC visitors all think the same. 5) So IC is doing an important service to the Irish and culturally Irish communities by providing occasion for discussion and debate so that we can see that we are not all the same and that our differences pose no real threat to each other.
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olovely | Jun 21, 2011, 09:32 PM EDT
It's nauseating to me to read heterosexual people howl that they're being discriminated against when in fact the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996 creates a set of second-class marriages, valid under state law but void for all federal purposes. The exclusion of a class of valid state marriages from all federal recognition is unprecedented in our jurisprudence.
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olovely | Jun 21, 2011, 06:50 PM EDT
Like I just said to katiemac and can't believe I have to say again: Cahir didn't say that all anti-gay marriage views make you an extremist, he said the people pictured above are. He even gave clear examples of how extreme they are. Honest to God, you people need to read articles before you waste all our time commenting on them.
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mamaginnty | Jun 21, 2011, 06:46 PM EDT
Just looking at the faces in the pic with their stern sneers says it all. That look is what you see also in the ku klux klan, which is still going strong. Just leave gays alone they are doing no harm to you.
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Gearoid4 | Jun 21, 2011, 06:34 PM EDT
While there are elements who indulge their hatred for gay people by vile speeches, it is disingenuous of Cahir to imply that the supporters of traditional marriage are characterized purely by bigotry and hate. Most people who believe that marriage is between one woman and a man do so out of conviction that's how marriage was understood over 2 millennia across the world.
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Chiefjustice | Jun 21, 2011, 06:25 PM EDT
30 years on the bench. Preformed over 600 marrages. I miss the court room, miss the people. Thankfull that I can't be pressured into preforming a GAY marrage ,should it pass the Senate and our Beloved Gov. Sign it into law.
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Rebelforce | Jun 21, 2011, 05:12 PM EDT
The Rev. Harold Camping is warning that if NY passes gay marriage the world will end this Saturday at 2:00 EST.
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olovely | Jun 21, 2011, 05:03 PM EDT
You're putting words in the writer's mouth, katiemac. Calling Hitler pro-gay is an extremist claim, particularly when you know (and you do know, don't you?) that they were among the first groups he sent to the camps? These people say that gays caused 9/11 and the earthquake in Haiti. That's extremist and stupid. The writer didn't mention you by name, you should stop taking offense.
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OldMariner | Jun 21, 2011, 04:11 PM EDT
None of the shown people above are in the NYS legislature. So what's your point? Are they representative of those people who are against gay marriage? i.e. nut jobs? Well, Cahir, if you're insinuating such, what about those gay "activists" who disrupt church services, parade in outrageous clerical garb, and all other nonsense behaviour representative of all gay people? I think not. (B
TW, the above mentioned demonstrations were against a church that provided much generous support to the dying gay community.) I believe that gays should be allowed marriage but clergy or any civil official should not be forced to conduct these marriages.
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AngelPrecious | Jun 21, 2011, 03:38 PM EDT
Cahir, your whole article is full of error! A person is NOT anti-gay because they believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. I believe that gays should have equal rights under the law and I could even go as far as to say that civil unions would be OK but don't call it a marriage!!! Marriage is a Sacrament! I would like to disagree with the poster that said that Catholics in the pews are for gay marriage. Maybe in some liberal parts of the US but NOT in most Dioceses throughout the country!
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Woodman | Jun 21, 2011, 03:16 PM EDT
I'm all for gay marriage. It's only fair. The gays should suffer too.
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PiperMac52 | Jun 21, 2011, 03:11 PM EDT
"Anti-gay activists"? Wow, it would seem that you are taking a position in favor of legitimizing the homosexual lifestyle as well as homosexual marriage. Now I would posit that that is an activist position. Remember, there are those who still hold to the biblical/faith based beliefs that this nation was founded on. In fact, every civilized society since the dawn of man has held that marriage is an institution between a man and a woman necessary for the very survival of the species. Now who is the activist?
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FatherVol | Jun 21, 2011, 02:34 PM EDT
And, where are the pro-gray extremists, Cahir?
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