Red (Purple?) Herring

Drawing away just a bit, I think it may be a good sign that the silly conservatives in the NY Senate are falling back on ye olde for-God's-sake (literally)-shield-churches approach to same-sex marriage. In a detailed piece in today's NYT, they are pulling the wheezing disingenuous crap anti-gay groups have used for far too many years.

Wherever SSM is legal, clerics and their churches will be forced, forced I say (think Foghorn Leghorn's cartoon bluster) to perform the weddings. They might even have to be nice to or touch those homosexuals. Moreover, they certainly would face ruinous lawsuits if they denied the weddings or any other conceivable accommodation to those sodomites and dykes (feel free to insert other reactionary slurs).

The hate groups here and elsewhere have long and very publicly proven such perils to their satisfaction. They find single cases in countries with laws very different from ours and without out Constitution protections. Confronted with undeniable proof that we already protect churches in the extreme, the response invariably is along the lines of, "It'll happen. Just wait and see."

We as a nation and in our states have so many years of letting churches and their internal pols get free rides, it's absurd to contend otherwise. As long as activities are even vaguely related to their stated religious purposes, churches pay no taxes, discriminate against any and all, and more or less disgrace what looks to the rest of us like obvious religious commands.

Hiding your fear and hatred behind hypothetical and impossible dangers is dishonest and dishonorable in the extreme.

More cynically, as in D.C. this tack is rawly, really about power. If the Senators can claim they forced artificial concessions, they get two advantages. First, they can claim they cowed the lefties and Dems (insert chest thumping sounds). Moreover, come campaign time, it's a tale of how they were outgunned and outnumbered, but they fought hard and at least saved churches and clerics from horrors (no matter how imaginary).

As a child, I was a devote little Christian. I got better but had already internalized the best messages from both Testaments. I personally find the deceit here reprehensible.

The good part is that with no substance to the winger arguments, they fall back on lies for pure political purposes. They seem limited now to extracting BS concessions.

Fact is, in NY and NH and elsewhere the anti-LGBT minions try to derail SSM legislation with subterfuge, they taint their alleged beliefs. I'd much rather hear that they hate and fear homosexuals than some jive about protecting already protected churches. Shame on them.

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Tags: massmarrier, New York State, same sex marriage, marriage equality, churches