Rutten Praises Process in New York

Tim Rutten once again used his Los Angeles Times column to pretend that neutering marriage is an obvious matter of civil rights. Funny MLK Jr. never mentioned it, nor did Mahatma Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, or any other major historical civil rights activist.

Rutten repeatedly uses the ridiculous phrase "marriage equality", but curiously never notes that first cousins can marry in some states, and not in others. Isn't that unequal?

The current debate over [neutering marriage] in the New York Legislature is a matter of importance to all, because at its heart it's about finally extending basic rights to those to whom they have been denied.

This is false. No person has been denied access to state marriage licenses based on their sexual orientation.



I agree with what Rutten goes on to write - that it is good that this is taking place in the legislature, if by that he means it is better than having it done by an activist court. But why can't we let the people of New York vote directly on this?

New York City Archbishop Timothy Dolan has been a consistent public opponent of same-sex marriage.

He's an opponent of neutering marriage because he supports marriage. Why doesn't Rutten call him an opponent of shacking up, or of polygamy, or divorce?

Rutten discusses the problem of Catholic charities being forced out of adoption services, which, typically draws comments and letters blaming Catholics for not abandoning their deeply held convictions; so much for churches not being forced to go along with marriage neutering.

Then he ends with:

If a bipartisan majority in the New York Legislature can work out a path to [neutering marriage] that doesn't involve the sort of destructive confrontation occurring in Illinois, the contribution to moral progress and the common good will be inestimable.

How does neutering marriage contribute to the common good more than it harms the common good? I can understand that keeping the Catholic adoption agencies around is beneficial, but we could do that if we didn’t attempt to neuter marriage in the first place. I mean really, this is like saying it we should drive cars into walls, but it would be a good idea of we could make people wear seatbelts while they did it. How about... not deliberately crashing in the first place? It is also interesting that Rutten invokes morality. Are we supposed to "keep morality out of it" or not?