Some Reaction the Neutering Marriage in New York

The columnists featured at Townhall.com often write about subjects relevant to this blog. I usually don’t get around to calling attention to such columns. Today is different.


Michael Medved sees evidence the even marriage neutering advocates know it is isn't a matter of civil rights.

Advocates for so-called “marriage equality” define their cause as a “civil rights” issue – equivalent to overturning bans on interracial weddings in the 1960’s. Then how could the New York law permit churches and other religious organizations to reject gay unions? Any church that discriminated against interracial marriages would violate civil rights laws. Preventing a white man from marrying a black woman is unacceptable, because there’s no legal difference between races. But saying a man can’t marry another man is a distinction based on gender, and the law allows different treatment –like separate restrooms, or draft status – based on gender. If gay advocates really believed discriminating against gay unions compared to discrimination against inter-racial unions, how could they possibly permit the religious exemption?

The answer, of course, is tactics. Even in a state as far to the Left as New York, the only way the legislature was willing to neuter marriage licensing is if they had the cover of certain religious protections as part of the legislation. However, the marriage neutering advocates will attack those protections. "Interracial" marriage was banned in some states, interfering with a historical practice. Neutering marriage is a new attempt at engineering human behavior.

From Bill Murchison:

What New York has done, amid much trumpeting and self-congratulation, is create a secular-political institution and give it, spuriously, the name of marriage, according to whose regulations two men may join themselves to each other as may two women.

It's a sad and shabby charade, with consequences that will likely prove proportionate to New York's size, population and megalomania.

New York's lawmakers have taken upon themselves an authority that all previous generations ascribed to God. The legislature's calculation was that the 21st century has needs beyond the comprehension of generations that failed to see [neutering] marriage as a matter of social justice.

For some, the state is their god, and so they mistakenly believe that legislation, or more often a court decision, will change the fundamental core of human nature. Or, their genitals are their god, and they use the power of the state to try to force everyone else to honor their god, while somehow simultaneously insisting that half of humanity having the other set of genitals doesn't really mean anything.

At my namesake blog, I note that "Delusional Marriage Neuterists Stroke Cuomo's Ego". They're talking about Cuomo as President in 2016. I hope they give him a lot of their money.

Quiz time. Can you tell me when the last time a New York-based politician won a major party’s Presidential nomination, let alone the Presidential Election? It’s not for lack of trying, as the Cuomos can tell you. And the Clintons. And the Gulianis, and so many others. I know New Yorkers and many Leftists think New York is the center of the universe, and it is a very important city in a lot of ways. But there are 49 (not 56) other states.

And that's another reason to believe that New York's neutering of its state marriage licenses is not predictive of the rest of the country.