38 Comments

• stanJames | Sep 22, 2011, 10:43 PM EDT

  The next thing we will hear is words from Dolan echoing another catholic's people. As he pledges loyalty to the pope who was born and had his early lessons growing up in Nazi Germany. "Sieg Heil", literally "Hail victory".

• hollabackgurl | Jul 07, 2011, 11:43 PM EDT

  You can not agitate for the exclusion and removal of rights from a disfavored minority and contend they are not being attacked. It's idiotic to pretend otherwise. Dolan is of a piece with Jerry Falwell, Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson and every other Christianist who works tirelessly to expose gay people to insult, slander and second class status. The Catholic Church encourages its followers to pray that foreign countries will continue to criminalize homosexuality and will resist efforts by the Obama administration to get them to change. they want to marginalize and strip the rights from anyone unlike themselves, that's Dolan's core mission.

• eiriamach | Jun 22, 2011, 07:12 PM EDT

  Gearoid4, I quoted a Vatican II document on opposing discrimination--"every type" of discrimination. The quotation is relevant because Dolan is lobbying to maintain a discriminatory status quo in NYS law. Perhaps he has not read or understood the pope's encyclical? I do not conflate or confuse his political activities with overt anti-gay sentiment. He does not need to say, "Hate the gays" in order to generate hatred of gays. Hannah Arendt pointed out that the best Nazis were not those who obeyed every order, but those who anticipated the will of the Fuhrer and did it without being ordered. When Catholics witness their own bishops working to keep discriminatory practices in place, many conclude that homosexuals are sinful and that it is therefore alright, if not obligatory, to hate them and to silence and ostracize those who argue for LGBT equality. I cannot believe that AB Dolan lacks the perspicuity to anticipate this result of his campaign. I have witnessed such hatred voiced by Catholics on a Saturday night, and then seen the same Catholics receiving communion the next morning at Mass. I do not expect such people ever to change their view of marriage, but I do expect Catholic clergy and prelates to realize that specific and generalized bigotry is the direct result of their anti-gay political activities. "Gaudium et Spes" supports that argument rather precisely.

• Gearoid4 | Jun 22, 2011, 02:19 PM EDT

  Eiriamach, clearly you do not understand the motivations driving the Archbishop to say what he does. He is not motivated by an ideological hatred of anyone in the gay community. He is undertaking his grave responsibility as the head pastor of his archdiocese to give a reasoned discourse on the importance of marriage as it is understood in Christian terms. There is no overt or covert anti-gay sentiment in any of his words. Do not conflate his speech with the hatred conveyed by extreme religious fundamentalists or those on the fanatical right who want to hurt or exterminate members of the gay community. You make reference to certain Vatican 11 documents in a specious way to try to get them to fit your arguments. Nowhere in any of the documents does the Church want to radically re-define marriage to make it what it was never intended to be. The relevant Vatican 11 teachings on marriage rather backs up the life-giving reality of a marital union between a single man and a single woman.

• eiriamach | Jun 22, 2011, 06:52 AM EDT

  Geroid4, you ignore my argument: the bishops' activities do immense and widespread harm. They stigmatize an entire group of human beings on the basis of private behavior, they nurture hatred and discrimination in heterosexuals, they perpetuate unjust social and economic inequalities, and they create an atmosphere in which many young people have found life itself not worth living and have resorted to suicide. These consequences render the bishops' campaign clearly evil-- indeed, sinful and scandalous. It violates not only the spirit but the letter of the gospel and works not toward greater acceptance of the Church's teaching, but toward repudiation of the Church's voice in politics, as one can easily see from others' comments. Vatican II exhorted us to transcend social-group differences, to remove barriers to full development of our humanity. From Gaudiam et Spes, The Community of Mankind, "28. Respect and love ought to be extended also to those who think or act differently than we do in social, political and even religious matters. In fact, the more deeply we come to understand their ways of thinking through such courtesy and love, the more easily will we be able to enter into dialogue with them.... [W]ith respect to the fundamental rights of the person, every type of discrimination, whether social or cultural, whether based on sex, race, color, social condition, language or religion, is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God's intent."

• Gearoid4 | Jun 21, 2011, 05:24 PM EDT

  Eiriamach, you quote statistics concerning the apparent decline of marriages since the 70's in the Catholic Church. A lot of reasons are responsible for the figures that you quote. The co-habitation option is seen by many couples as an alternative to marriage, although many do not give up the hope of a Church wedding. The registry office is favored by a lot of couples due to matters such as divorces in previous relationship which are problematic for the Church. Whatever the stats, marriage between one man and one woman provides the optimum conditions for the raising of children in terms of their future prospects as reliable studies show. It is not an entitlement that simply can be reconfigured to anyone's particular situation. laws which are of serious moral import cannot be decided on the back of a democratic vote. The natural law given by God is written in our hearts and we know instinctively if it is right or wrong. Eiriamach, the Vatican 11 Council never mandated a loosening of the definition of sacred institutions like marriage to suit 'same-sex' marriage. It was rock solid on the marital bond as being between a single man and a single woman and open to life.

• eiriamach | Jun 21, 2011, 11:24 AM EDT

  Why are the bishops trying so hard to exclude this relatively small population from marriage equality under state law when the marriage rate for Catholics has fallen by nearly 60% --yes, SIXTY percent-- since 1972? See news articles on Our Sunday Visitor, the National Catholic Register, Commonweal, and elsewhere about this statistic. According to the Commonweal article, “'The number of marriages celebrated in the Church has fallen from 415,487 in 1972 to 168,400 in 2010 — a decrease of nearly 60 percent — while the U.S. Catholic population has increased by almost 17 million,' Gray writes. 'To put this another way, this is a shift from 8.6 marriages per 1,000 U.S. Catholics in 1972 to 2.6 marriages per 1,000 Catholics in 2010.'” It's not that people are no longer getting married, but that they do not often choose to marry in the Catholic Church. With the bishops taking such a snarky, scroogy, proprietary approach to marriage, that should be no surprise to anyone.

• eiriamach | Jun 21, 2011, 08:37 AM EDT

  This opposition to full equality is the most telling symptom of pathology at work in the six-decades-long resistance of traditional Catholics to the reform Council of Vatican II. In 2011, Jamiemac is still repulsed by "pro-gay/lesbian images in print, on TV, in movies, in our educational institutions.... the 'gay agenda,'" and Gearoid4 argues "tradition" against *equality*!! Many unjust traditions changed after Vatican II, in part because reform-minded Catholics awakened to the justice of full civil rights for ethnic minorities, legal equality for women, transparency in government, rights of labor, etc. that mark the second half of the 20th century as an era of progress toward a more just society. The "princes of the church," however, blame such "liberation" movements for their own scandals. They cling to their privilege of dictating an anti-democratic and immoral "moral law" to the masses. They ride roughshod over our great American tradition of separating church from state. As they seek to control Catholic politicians, the result will be excluding Catholics from political office. They should consider the possibility that the Holy Spirit is not under exclusive contract to them. Sometimes the Spirit moves us to make progress by working for secular causes, such as full marriage equality. The Catholic bishops need to get their house in order and prepare for thorough-going church reforms that embrace the core message of the Gospel: God's inclusive love for the children, the poor, the marginalized, the rejected....

• eiriamach | Jun 21, 2011, 07:49 AM EDT

  No, eliminating bigotry is not as simple as substituting one form of recognition for another. Substituting civil unions for marriage will not placate the Catholic bishops. See the Chicago Tribune's May 26, 2011 article By Manya Brachear: "Catholic Charities of Rockford announced Thursday that the agency will halt its state-funded foster care and adoption services Wednesday — the day civil unions take effect in Illinois. "The decision is the first of what could become a domino effect of Catholic Charities leaving the foster care and adoption business to avoid liability if state law requires them to place children with parents in civil unions — either gay or straight." As social scientists have shown, there is no difference in achievement or mental or emotional health between children raised by same-sex couples and those raised by heterosexual couples. There are no rational grounds for Catholic opposition to marriage equality, and civil unions will not make same-sex unions acceptable to them. The bishops' continuing opposition to marriage equality stigmatizes and exposes gays to discrimination and worse. For all of us, it distorts the society we live in, distorts it with irrational rejection of some human beings and delusions of moral superiority on the part of others.

• ellenfromcork | Jun 20, 2011, 07:27 PM EDT

  There's a simple solution to all this overheated debate. Anyone who wishes to unite permanently w/ another human being, of legal age and sound mind, ( John and Mary, John and Dave, Mary and Rose) can, in a civil ceremony. This would be recognized by the state as a "union" and have all the legal rights of what is now called a "marriage". If they wish, can also have a religious ceremony to provide a "marriage" The civil union would be the law of the land and the "marriage" the religious icing on the cake. l

• CitizenWhy | Jun 20, 2011, 09:58 AM EDT

  Gearoid4 .. You previously said that marriage is between one man and one woman, then you say that it is meant by nature to be between a man and a women (without numbers). I think your main point is marriage is for the purpose of procreation, which the Catholic church teaches. But in my Catholic school I was taught that marriage has a number of purposes, starting with companionable love,which certainly is illustrated in the Jewish/Christian Bible. In the strictly Catholic (not universal) view, companionable love is sacramental because it is a direct reflection of Christ's love for the church and for all of humanity, and a source of grace to strengthen this love. I was taught that this companionable love is meant to be extended into the next generation through procreation or, for childless people, through any number of ways of contributing to the spiritual and material benefit of children. This care for the next generation was called generative love. Many liberal Christians believe that homosexuals can share their companionable love in union with Christ, and that they must take seriously that their lives will in some way benefit the next generations. This is a conflict between a strict traditional view and a view moderated by reconsidering marriage as an institution in the light of love, human and spiritual. Reconsidering happens often in religion: for instance, Leviticus, often cited to prove that homosexuality is wrong, also states that adulterers must be pt to death. May reconsiderers hold thar the condemnation of homosexuality in Leviticus is limited to sex without love or concern for the welfare of the next generation.

• JackFknTwist | Jun 20, 2011, 09:37 AM EDT

  @Gearoid4 ; So what if catholics and Muslims agree that "marriage" is between one man and one woman ? they're still discriminating on equality grounds. go back into your churches and have what hate-fests you want. But in Public law there must be equality.....nothing less. And the last thing we need is to be lectured to by pompous old lechers of the Catholic Church who are so guilty of abhorrent misconduct and crime that they should be ashamed to show their faces. let's have no more Catholic s**t on this site.

• irishpjk | Jun 20, 2011, 12:08 AM EDT

  Now I send Irish Central to my junk mail so I no longer will see the grabage gthey spew.

• patrickomalley | Jun 19, 2011, 11:06 PM EDT

  Catholic church: Stop raping children, stop covering it up, stop lying about it, and stop telling everyone else what to do. Oh, and lose some weight, Dolan. You are a horrible example for children.

• eiriamach | Jun 19, 2011, 10:50 PM EDT

  "During an interview with The New York Post, Rudy Giuliani said that he is against gay marriage. He feels marriage should be between a man, a woman, the other woman, and the other woman he met after that." --Comedian Jay Leno

• Collette2 | Jun 19, 2011, 10:14 PM EDT

  In Australia I recently read, in relation to ant-discrimination, the church is able to disciminate against whom it employs to protect the doctrine and whatever is necessary to avoid "hurting" the religious feelings of the faithful, so that's an interesting concept.

• eiriamach | Jun 19, 2011, 10:01 PM EDT

  It's edifying to encounter a human being who can see with the eyes of God. If we could all see with the eyes of God, we could all recognize in each other that elusive quality that makes us all loved by God-- but not always by each other. It's that "loved by each other" part, not the "eyes of God" part that we human beings need to work on, IMHO.

• JimMcGarity | Jun 19, 2011, 09:48 PM EDT

  Even if the have the right to get married, they will never have what and married man and woman have in the eyes of GOD.

• eiriamach | Jun 19, 2011, 09:29 PM EDT

  Whatever the "grounds," Gearoid4, the ***effect*** would be discriminatory. And you know it! And AB Dolan knows it! And everyone who puts money in the collection at a RC Church knows it and knows that the money supports it! Supporting injustice, marginalizing our neighbors, imposing stringent rules on other people in the most intimate dimensions of their lives, encouraging bigotry by stigmatizing gays and lesbians as not morally worthy of full equality under the law, and dispiriting the young by filling their social environment with guilt-- you are doing this in order to discriminate, and no matter what the "grounds," that is wrong on any interpretation of the Gospel.

• Gearoid4 | Jun 19, 2011, 09:18 PM EDT

  CitizenWhy, the Muslim faith allows more than one wive does not disprove the point that marriage is between a man and a woman. Classical Christianity promotes the ideal of a single marriage between one man and one woman 'until death do us part'. Eiriamach, the Catholic Church is promoting the common Christian understanding concerning marriage and this is not done on the grounds of discrimination.

• eiriamach | Jun 19, 2011, 09:00 PM EDT

  And while katiemac is speaking out "against this effort to normalize" the full civil and human rights of gays and lesbians, of course she'll throw around a conspiracy theory or two, or several. She'll suggest that homosexuals infiltrated the Catholic Church and conspired to make it only look as though real priests raped children-- thousands of them-- and got protection from their bishops to escape the reach of the law. No, she suggests, that was not the work of real Catholic priests but of "sinful," "inherently disordered" gays! And now the same gays are conspiring to take over your K of C halls and sue your Church for damages caused by hate speech and even bring down your favorite institutions, your kids' schools, the US government, and the RC Church itself! Wow! If gays had the power to do all that, they would not have to worry about verbal assaults by Pharisees like Dolan. Go ahead, blame the gays for making you sully your hands in politics to keep your right to discriminate! Paranoia feels so good, doesn't it, as long as you can claim that anyone who disagrees with you is trying to silence you. So tell us more, please, about who's trying to destroy you along with everything you believe in... These are fascinating stories, really.... It's beginning to sound like Jesus' idea about taking up the cause of the poor and the marginalized, the powerless, the leper, the prostitute, the tax collector, and making the problems of those people your own.

• rugbyplayer | Jun 19, 2011, 08:00 PM EDT

  Archbishop Timothy Dolan has a big mouth and ought to learn to keep it closed. New York City does not appreciate men in power who think of themselves bigger than life. Dolan's ego will help to deplete the Catholic faith in the Archdiocese of New York.

• peterson | Jun 19, 2011, 06:55 PM EDT

  The Bible says that homosexuality is a sin. The population of sinners and nonbelievers is growing --unfortunately !! They will have a big surprise coming!!

• CitizenWhy | Jun 19, 2011, 06:42 PM EDT

  Gearoid4 ... The universal understanding of marriage is not limited to a sacred bond between one man and one woman. Muslims make up at least a quarter of the world's population and Islam allows a man four wives and he can divorce any of them whenever he wants. Please read the Bible. Polygamy was a normal practice among the early Jews and their neighbors.

• eiriamach | Jun 19, 2011, 05:47 PM EDT

  What Dolan is spreading is certainly not "Good News" in any season to anyone except heterosexists. BTW: heterosexism is a sin. Just as Dolan has the right to invoke some deluded sense of 'natural law' to support his opposition to human and civil rights, I have the right to call him deluded and worse. In this particular 'season,' when IC and other news sources report an alarming rate of suicides among young people and when Tea Partiers scream about wanting to "take back" their country (to the Victorian Age), it is clear as daylight that the Catholic bishops are doing great harm to youth and to our communities with their anti-gay-rights campaign. In his 2003 document as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger, now pope, acknowledged the effect on the young of suppressing equal rights: "Lifestyles and the underlying presuppositions these express not only externally shape the life of society, but also tend to modify the younger generation's perception and evaluation of forms of behaviour" ("Considerations..."). Dolan's vehement opposition to gay rights depicts the behavior of homosexuals as 'evil' and shameful. What effect do you expect such a depiction to have on a young person just discovering his or her own homosexual orientation? What openness to the future can such a young person have when she or he discovers that the "sacred bond" available to so many is denied to him even though he is a person created in the image of God?

• Gearoid4 | Jun 19, 2011, 05:02 PM EDT

  This use of labels like 'bigot' and 'anti-gay' is wearing more than a little thin from the pro-gay 'marriage' lobby. It just muddies the waters of debate. Archbishop Dolan was exercising his constitutional rights to explain fully the Catholic Christian viewpoint on the sanctity of traditional marriage. Marriage is by definition since it's inception a sacred bond between one man and one woman and this is an historical and verifiable fact. The UNHCR refers to 'rights' being infringed as if it was an absolute right for people to have access to it in whatever version took their fancy. Archbishop Dolan as a successor in his local Archdiocese in the apostolic line is very much the spokesman for Christ's Church where he has jurisdiction. He is doing only what Christ mandated the apostles to do i.e to teach and spread the Good News in and out of season

• eiriamach | Jun 19, 2011, 04:41 PM EDT

  Enacting laws to protect gay rights and equality in no way deprives anyone of his or her freedom of religion. Someone who opposes gay rights exercises freedom of speech: not freedom of religion, but the freedom to speak or write against gay equality. Anyone familiar with freedom of speech knows that others are free to vilify us whenever we speak out. That is the price of freedom: allowing others to exercise the same freedoms we exercise. In no way does the equality of gay citizens under the rule of law intrude on anyone else's freedom of religion. We all remain free to believe what we wish to believe about the moral law. But Dolan's brain is in the monarchic middle ages if he thinks it is his duty to enforce papal teachings on sexually intimate relationships among consenting, competent adults, or if he thinks that wearing a pectoral cross gives him any authority in the political forum, where we are all equal. His is one voice among many, and his voice is certainly not the voice that speaks for Christ.

• eiriamach | Jun 19, 2011, 04:29 PM EDT

  "Our beliefs should not be viewed as discrimination against homosexual people"~~Dolan. The disingenuous Archbishop knows that his Church's public, well financed lobbying against gay rights stigmatizes gays, encourages hate speech and hate crimes against them, licenses homophobic hatred among Roman Catholics, and creates for gay youth an atmosphere of shame and despair that can lead to suicide. Surely he knows that the bishops are breeding mean-spirited bigots who understand only the most atavistic kind of religion: the horde mentality that tramples on any form of difference. They may not be as open about their hatred as Westboro Baptists, but they are as dedicated to it. They have NOT affirmed the "basic human rights of gay men and women"; on the contrary, the Vatican has objected repeatedly to UN resolutions calling for equality regardless of sexual orientation. Not only has the Vatican 'State' objected, but it developed a coalition of Islamic fundamentalist states to block votes. Yesterday, however, the UN Human Rights Council narrowly (23/19) passed a South African resolution that voices "grave concern about abuses suffered by people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity" and calls for a report on LGBT status worldwide. It is a travesty of moral/natural law for RC bishops to complain that protecting gay rights undermines Catholic "freedom of religion"--read this as "freedom" to deprive others of their freedom to love, care for, and marry whom they choose. Clear-thinking people call that kind of 'freedom' TYRANNY.

• AngelPrecious | Jun 19, 2011, 04:03 PM EDT

  Cahir, of course you only write the parts of Archbishop Dolan's statement that fits your sick bias and not his whole statement! @Trealach, agreed, huge difference between gay marriage and civil unions!

• Gearoid4 | Jun 19, 2011, 03:11 PM EDT

  Members of the Catholic Church, both religious and lay pay taxes like everyone else and have the absolute right to organize opposition to legislation which threatens to foolishly redefine something which is fundamental to Christian belief i.e namely marriage. One cannot simply draw an imaginary line between public and private spheres where something as serious as the above is concerned.

• CoreyDamerell | Jun 19, 2011, 02:43 PM EDT

  The Catholic Church needs to keep its nose out of political issues or it should lose it tax exempt status.

• Gearoid4 | Jun 19, 2011, 02:05 PM EDT

  Marriage indeed existed in pre-Christian societies as in ancient Rome and Greece but the biblical sense of marriage is a life-long Convenantal arrangement between one man and one woman in the same manner as God has with His Chosen people. The common ingredients in marriage across all societies and centuries are the mutual love between one man and one woman in a union that is open to procreation. These are clearly lacking in 'gay' marriages. Cahir makes the point that the proposed legislation in NY is not binding on Churches but still by redefining the nature of marriage by law has repercussions for all sectors of society. Possibly the issues could have been legislated for in a civil union arrangement.

• CitizenWhy | Jun 19, 2011, 01:37 PM EDT

  Marriage existed before Christianity and before Judaism, and exits in many religions and cultures outside of present-day Christianity, with no Christian influence affecting their institutions of marriage. Yet many talk as if marriage is some kind of Biblical institution. ... The Catholic Church, of course, sees marriage as a universal, "natural" institution (not exclusively Christian) as part of a universal natural law, which the Church claims to interpret "philosophically" for all of humanity, not just Catholics and Biblical believers. But Western nations have replaced the medieval notion of natural law with "natural rights" which must be upheld equally for all citizens. ... In the US "the law of nature" has been used in the past to justify slavery and the exclusion of women from full human rights. The Catholic Church, conservative Protestants, conservative Jews, and conservative secularists conceive of nature differently from Western liberal Christians, liberal Jews, and liberal secularists. They will never, ever agree with each other. Unfortunately that reduces the marriage disagreement to an issue of who can seize political power, and make their view the law o he land. Secularists and liberals are willing to exempt churches from any obligation to perform gay marriage, but to conservative Christians that is not enough. They cannot see themselves agreeing to a society that violates, in an important way, their view of a universally binding "natural law." Many once felt this way about slavery and women's civil rights and racial integration but have since, in most cases (with many exceptions), accepted these practices,as right or at least tolerable.

• Trealach | Jun 19, 2011, 12:33 PM EDT

  @milfordmama - Civil Union Contracts are permitted in Ireland since earlier this year. Same Sex Marriage is NOT permitted, though no doubt there will be a push for it. They just can't get it into their thick heads that TWO Bulls are NOT the same as a BULL and a COW!!

• milfordmama | Jun 19, 2011, 12:20 PM EDT

  I agree with Springfield9, legal and civil rights via a civil union. NOT a "marriage". Just curious, does Ireland allow gay marriages, or something similar?

• joan1954 | Jun 19, 2011, 11:47 AM EDT

  I like the alternative lifestyle connotation, civil union if you wish but marriage is between a man and a woman.

• PhlutiePhan | Jun 19, 2011, 10:42 AM EDT

  Three-fifths has to do with pre civil war treatment of African-Americans. Once again, you do a disservice to the black community which has plenty of problems with the family. You know as well as I that you "isolate and then destroy". I call it license and decadence. Gay relationships, especially for men, are very promiscuous. So, what is the Catholic Church to do? New York is reacting. Boston is "imploding".

• Springfield9 | Jun 19, 2011, 10:10 AM EDT

  The hot button is "mariage" the word has biblical/religious overtones. Le the "alternative lifestyle" people have a "Civil Union" a la the old Soviet Union. Same effect, no headaches.