The following is a report by Elizabeth Benjamin for the NY Daily News:
Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith is sticking to his guns on “Toeiva marriage”, insisting that he won’t heed the governor’s call to bring his program bill to the floor regardless of whether it has sufficient votes to pass.
“I’m very concerned about putting a bill on the floor that’s going to be symbolism and not pass,” the Queens Democrat said. “…I’m going to count until I know that I have 32 if not 34. I’m not going to move it on the floor if I don’t have the numbers that I need.”
Smith, who spoke briefly with reporters at the DRC meeting in Saratoga Springs last Friday night, also said that when it comes to marriage, he’s “not going to get into horse trading” – a time-honored Albany tradition in which seemingly unrelated issues are linked in order to assure their passage by the Legislature.
“I’m not going to get into horse trading,” Smith said. “This is the right issue. if you want to be on the right side of history then I think you should support this.”
Smith also said he doesn’t intend to back down from his personal support of same-gender marriage to assuage the displeasure of religious leaders over same-gender-marriage, which includes his own pastor and political mentor, the Rev. Floyd Flake.
Smith revealed the reason he did not attend Paterson’s marriage press conference in Manhattan last week was because he was meeting with religious leaders at his district office.
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8 Responses
May this bill die and may it never see the light of day again. Amen!
We are trying to close the proverbial barn door long, long after the horse is gone.
The problem is that well over 100 years the government got involved with marriage – so-called civil marriage is an invention of the United States. Now all matter of secular rights hinge on marital status, from taxpayer status, right to health information, etc. That and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, I predict, make this a losing battle – ultimately same-sex civil marriage will prevail as an equal protection issue.
We need to circle our wagons, keep to the Torah and let secular society do what it has to under the Constitution, as long as they leave us and our chasenuhs alone – they eat chazer, we don’t – same thing here.
the problem is , that the point is not so much whether it passes but rather the despicable mindset that encourages people to fight for thier so called rights regarding these abominations
When we hear discussions of such previously-unheard-of proposals, we know that America is entering the last stages of its ultimate decline.
Wolffman (no 2):
GREAT IDEA, except that circling the wagons won’t help when the ground is collapsing under our feet!
deepthinker: Relax – we’ve survived alot worse than this in our history.
If you think that all of society will crash because existing homosexual relationships are granted civil/goyish “marriage” status then you are blowing up the issue out of all reasonable proportion . . . as do, I might add, the proponents of such nonsense.
This country and its tradition of equal protection still remains an enormous brocha – it’s what directly or indirectly gives us legal protections for everything from Shabbos observance to suspension of alternate side parking on Yom Tovim. The legal principle of equal protection has been incredibly important to the growth and success of Yiddeshkeit in this country. That it now supports this gay marriage shtuss is only the flip side of a coin that has been our friend.
Finally, betuchan v’ emunah – and faith in what Hashem Yisborach has in store for – us can bring us closer to our own values when living through this issue. On balance – yawn.
Dear Wolfman (no. 6):
That may be your opinion, but our Torah sages think otherwise:
“Sodom was destroyed when they started wrting marriage contacts for ZeChorim.”
And, LehavDil, the famous historian George Unwin analyzed many, many civilizations that went under, and concluded that the leading social indicator of decline and fall was this very same thing.
Thank you deepthinker.