New York Catholic Conference Hypocrisy

As 365gay.com is reporting, the New York Catholic Conference is having vapors and coniption fits over Governor David Paterson's directive requiring state agencies to recognize gay marriages performed legally elsewhere. The official position of the Conference is to oppose all efforts to legalize the union of same-sex couples, whether called marriage or civil unions, thereby demonstrating that its alleged mission to uphold "the innate dignity of every human person made in the image and likeness of God" and to "seek justice, fairness and charity for all" is a crock of bullshit if one happens to be gay or the victim of sexual abuse by a preist. Like all of the Roman Catholic Church bureacracy, the Conference has been utterly silent when it comes to demanding the disciplining of bishops and cardinals who enabled/covered up sexual abuse of minors, e.g., New York's Cardinal Eagan. In short, the Conference behaves much like the Biblical Pharisees: fauning conduct towards clerics and concern over form and rules rather than the substantive message of the Gospels. Here are highlights from 365gay.com:

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Religious and social conservatives vowed Thursday to fight Gov. David Paterson's directive requiring state agencies to recognize gay marriages performed legally elsewhere, saying it flouts traditional values and is a big step toward legalizing same-sex unions in New York. "The definition of marriage predates recorded history," said New York State Catholic Conference Executive Director Richard E. Barnes [pictured above]. "No single politician or court or legislature should attempt to redefine the very building block of our society in a way that alters its entire meaning and purpose."

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At a Manhattan news conference on Thursday, Paterson, a Roman Catholic, defended the directive, saying failure to issue it would have left the state open to lawsuits claiming the state deprived gay couples of civil rights enjoyed in other states."We have a time-held and time-tested tradition honoring those marital rights," Paterson said. "I am taking the same approach that this state always has with respect to out-of-state or marriages conducted in foreign governments being recognized here in the state of New York. I am following the law as it has always existed."

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Homophobe bigot Barnes went on to also state: "Just as the state cannot declare a man to be a 'mother' or a woman to be a 'father,' it can not declare a same-sex union to be a 'marriage.' To use a distinctly New York expression, 'It is what it is.' "