Archbishop Dolan of NY Stands Up to Government Overreach: Blessings on Him

In this Catholic News Agency story we have an update on the culture wars in New York state as the assault on marriage by cultural Marxists and Progressives continues relentlessly.

New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan is concerned that state senators might “re-invent the very definition” of marriage—society's basic institution—as five more lawmakers pledged to support a same-sex “marriage” bill.

“Not every desire, urge, want, or chic cause is automatically a ‘right,’” the archbishop explained in his June 14 blog post titled “The True Meaning of Marriage.” True freedom, he said, is not “the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought.”

Later that day, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo presented the “Marriage Equality Act” to the state legislature after a key Republican senator voiced support for it. Four Democrats who previously voted against same-sex “marriage” said on June 13 that they would support the bill.

Governor Cuomo's administration is reportedly pursuing a strategy of gradually pressuring lawmakers to give their support.

“We’re in a very precarious situation,” New York Catholic Conference director Dennis Poust told CNA on June 15. According to a New York Times tally, the law needs only one more committed vote to ensure its passage.

“We are doing everything we can to convince the remaining 31 senators who have not said that they are going to vote ‘yes’ that this bill is a terrible mistake, and we have not given up,” Poust explained. “There is still hope, although certainly it is hanging by a thread.”

If the bill does pass, “there is very little that can be done,” he said, because New York does not have a system of initiatives and referendums like California and some other states do.

As always, this attack on the two institutions that stand in the way of the totalitarian state, marriage and the Christian Church, has nothing really to do with so-called "homosexual rights" and everything to do with renouncing natural law, attempting to impose the triumph of the human will over reality itself and making the State (controlled by an elite class of bureaucrats) all-powerful. The Leviathan - the State without limits - seeks to take the place of God. And just as the idea that two men can "marry" each other is a lie, so is the idea that the State can be God.

Notice how destructive of marriage and family this attack is:

Archbishop Dolan warned that the proposal would exert government control over an institution more fundamental than the state itself – a prospect that he compared to the communist regimes of China and North Korea.

“In those countries, government presumes daily to ‘redefine’ rights, relationships, values, and natural law,” he observed. “There, communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of ‘family’ and ‘marriage’ means.”

The bill under consideration in New York specifies that no religious institutions will be forced to honor or facilitate homosexual “weddings.” However, it will eliminate all gender-specific language regarding the rights and responsibilities of individuals and couples.

The whole idea is (1) to marginalize, de-legitimize and minimize marriage as the foundation of the family and (2) to assert the authority of the State over all other social institutions and realities - even natural marriage and family. Since the Church seeks to protect the priority and rights of families, the homosexual "rights" campaign can be used simultaneously to weaken and persecute the Church. This is why homosexuality is such a huge issue; it is not about homosexuals, it is about destroying all opposition to the Progressive agenda and its vehicle the State.

Archbishop Dolan is to be commended for centering on the crucial issue:

Archbishop Dolan also responded in his blog post to those who say the Church discriminates against homosexuals. He pointed out that the Church seeks, rather, to maintain the truth about human nature, sexuality, and the family.

The issue is the truth about human nature. The Church did not invent this truth; rather, she discovers and submits to it in both creation and revelation. The truth is prior to human decision and impervious to human will. No society can remain free and healthy if it denies the truth and the denial of the truth will always lead to oppression, de-humanization and tyranny.

The culture wars were not started by Christians, but by those who seek to attack the truth. In this case, it is heartening to see the Catholic hierarchy defending the family, marriage, the truth about human nature and the freedom that comes from believing the truth.
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(By the way, the fact that this assault on the truth is being facilitated by individuals claiming to be members of Christian churches and in some cases by clergy or even whole denominations is confusing to casual observers and simple-minded people. This does not change the reality that the assault is ultimately the work of Satan and his puppets. This aspect of the situation will be discussed in another post.)