Same-sex “marriage” passes in New York
The bill institutionalizing homosexual “marriage” was passed by the New York State Senate a few minutes ago. I happened to be watching MSNBC the moment the vote was completed, and applause broke out from the Senate gallery. An amendment creating dubious “protections” for churches was passed earlier in the evening, and this apparently gave two additional Republicans the excuse to vote for the bill, breaking the previous 31 to 31 standoff and resulting in a 33 to 29 vote for passage. By allowing the bill to come to the floor, which nothing was forcing them to do, the Republican majority betrayed God, nature, civilization, and sanity. They fled, though none pursued.
This is a terrible, disastrous event. As a New York State resident, now I know how Lot felt living in Sodom.
- end of initial entry -
June 25
Tim W. writes:
I saw the MSNBC broadcast, too. It’s times like this that I’m happy I live in the South, away from the insanity of Northeastern and West Coast liberalism. But really, is anywhere safe from this? All of these state battles were designed to gain a few beachheads for same-sex “marriage” and then use those five or six states as a base to force compliance on the rest of the country. New York was an important win for them since it’s a big state and a lot of corporate headquarters are there.
It’s now only a matter of time until some New York homosexual “married” couple want to move to Nebraska or Tennessee or Texas, and file a claim that the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause protects their “marriage” everywhere. Or just wait until a homosexual military “couple” get transferred to a base in South Carolina. I fear that Anthony Kennedy won’t be able to resist the chance to become the new Earl Warren.
One of the reporters interviewed by Rachel Maddow argued that voting for same-sex “marriage” was really the conservative, family values vote, and a vote to get government out of people’s lives. He was on the phone so I couldn’t see if he said this with a straight face.
Alexis Zarkov writes:
My condolences to the people of New York State. As one who was born, raised, and educated in the once great state of New York, I look upon its passing with sorrow. Even the demented, hedonistic, profligate, low-IQ (third from the bottom) state of California remains free from the abomination of same-sex marriage. We voted it down with Proposition 8 in 2008.
As I have said before, the left keeps winning and the right keeps losing. Why should this happen in a fundamentally center-right country like the United States? Simple. The left knows how to seek, wield and keep power. Power is their business—their only business. The right lacks the will to resist as we see in New York where the Republican opposition caved. Look at how the left was able to tie Wisconsin into knots. Even with control of the governor’s office and both houses in the legislature, the Republicans were barely able to pass their agenda. The left got a judge to issue an illegal order. They almost got their woman into the Supreme Court in an election to preserve that order. They lost, but then demanded a recount which they lost again. Still the loser was considering yet another lawsuit. They do not give up, and the right does. Until this changes the left will keep on winning.
James N. writes:
First of all, condolences. I grew up in a heavily Republican Nassau County, I left New York State in 1980 and have been somewhat out of touch with political developments there.
After the initial wave of reaction dies down, I hope VFR will have some discussion about the curious behavior of the GOP senators who switched. This is interesting because, like Charlie Brown and the football, it seems that there is ALWAYS a Republican Lucy who snatches the ball away at the last moment.
This cannot be simply that the inevitable Republican betrayer is a secret Democrat, or a RINO, or (in this case) in the closet, or any of the other usual suspicions or accusations.
I would venture the idea that there is a core defect in “conservative” elected officials that makes them vulnerable to leftist influence, even when they represent themselves as otherwise, even when they do not believe this about themselves.
There is something about this phenomenon, of Republican elected officials betraying their constituents, betraying even their own political interests, that is not well understood.
Homosexual “marriage” has never won a straight up popular vote. Not anywhere, not even in California. It’s obvious that your GOP switchers in NY were afraid of something, afraid enough to, in some cases, commit political suicide.
What are they afraid of?
Kenneth R. writes:
Some posters at VFR wonder why Republican politicians in NY caved into the liberal, media pressure to vote for gay marriage. Where is that fear coming from?
That fear in part is from the belief that liberal principles are intuitively right. Equality is the sine qua non of the contemporary moral and legislative agenda. All of American and world history is moving inevitably towards an egalitarian society. Gay marriage is but one aspect of that engine. The fear for the Republican is a deeply sub-conscious one—“I need to be on the right side of history, I cannot be seen to be against egalitarianism.” Even if I believe that homosexuality is morally wrong, my philosophy of government is all-inclusive. In this sense, American history and government can work against morality.
The objective of complete egalitarianism has been enshrined by the civil rights movement of the ’60s. There was an air of inevitability about it that has been translated into the gay rights arena. Politicians that voted against total racial integration changed their opinions decades later. The same attitude holds forth today. You may vote against homosexual marriage today but some day you will change your vote. We will give you endless opportunities to do so over the next few years—the result is inevitable. Why, only yesterday polls indicated that the main part of society was against gay marriage and today the polls have swung in the other direction.
As one poster indicated, it is about the rate of acceleration in moving towards the inevitable objective—the speed at which one moves in implementing a legislative agenda. The conservative wants to preserve a modicum of traditional society. Sudden moves, too fast a rate of acceleration will shock the system. Do it slowly—hence the friction liberal advocates are running into as Republicans use various delaying tactics in state houses of government. It has become a question of strategy, not principles now. The conservative conserves a part of traditional society (not the whole of it) and attempts to accomodate changes through what is deemed a “reasonable” rate of motion. Why can’t we all just get along.
The media serves either to influence the speed of motion or to show the conservative the roadmap for directions. The direction is all one way though speeds may vary. The inevitability of something implies its rightness. The moral map is delineated by “the direction society is moving in,” not through some encoded book of past principles and truths. The media is the immediate, empirical, present record of that movement—the handwriting that the eye observes. The Judeo-Christian ethic does not inform or propel this motion. Therefore it cannot inform the politician. And the inevitability of egalitarianism is enshrined in America’s founding documents—so extrapolate from those statements of origin and move ahead.
Republicans are caught in this movement; their subconsciousness (fears and pressures) is formed by these directions. That is the tragedy of American politics today.
Leonard D. writes:
James N. asks about the GOP senators who switched, “What are they afraid of?”
They are afraid of the press, which has a strong influence on their reelection. Any Republican who switches on gay marriage can be a maverick or a brave truth-teller of conscience. A Republican who does not switch is a homophobe and reprobate.
They are afraid of the bad opinion of their society in general. This is because, within the ruling class, gay marriage is highly if not overwhelmingly popular. It is true that any Republican will know many proles who oppose gay marriage. But they do not interact with such people every day. They interact daily with the educated class.
They also seek the good opinion in particular cases of their family or close friends. Many people have a homosexual within their family, and most of their family supports that person and his or her partner. Even more people have close friends who have a homosexual close to them.
They are also afraid of the future. Recall that progressives control all education in this country, at all levels. The new generation is fully indoctrinated with rights and equality, not to mention “social justice.” They support gay marriage at much higher rates than older people. You can see this in any poll which gives an age break-down. (For example, go to pollingreport.com here and search for “65 &.” Adults 18-45 years old support gay marriage or civil unions 65 percent to 32 percent; those over 65 oppose it 45 percent to 47 percent.)
Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 24, 2011 10:51 PM | Send