Bloomberg Makes Case For NYC Same-Gender Marriage Law, Compares It To Slavery

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bloombergMayor Michael Bloomberg warned state lawmakers today that if they oppose legalizing same-gender marriage they may be remembered as civil rights obstructionists similar to those who opposed the abolition of slavery and fought against giving women the right to vote.

“The question for every New York state lawmaker is: Do you want to be remembered as a leader on civil rights? Or an obstructionist? On matters of freedom and equality, history has not remembered obstructionists kindly,” Bloomberg said in his speech at Manhattan’s The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

Bloomberg argued that failing to legalize same-gender  marriage in New York, which he called the birthplace of the same-gender-rights movement, would have economic consequences as well as human ones.

“As other states recognize the rights of same-[gender] couples to marry, we cannot stand by and watch. To do so would be to betray our civic values and history and it would harm our competitive edge in the global economy,” he said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been pushing the Legislature to make same-gender marriage legal, but has said he wouldn’t bring the issue to a vote unless he felt it would pass. The mayor argued that the state’s residents deserve to see where their legislators stand, whatever the outcome.

In Albany, same-gender marriage is tightly contested now that those opposed to same-gender marriage have committed $1.5 million to the effort, matching the supporters’ campaign fund. Senate Republicans, who are key to the effort, also are closely watching polls, which for the first time in months are showing an apparent slight erosion of public support for same-gender marriage after months of steady gains.

The measure is being negotiated in private by Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who support same-gender marriage, and Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos, who personally opposes legalizing same-gender marriage.

Three veteran Republican senators told The Associated Press last week that they have seen no change in votes in their conference. The measure lost in the Senate in 2009.

Bloomberg has lobbied the Republican senators for whom he is a major campaign funder. But no senator has publicly said he or she will switch to supporting same-gender marriage.

The mayor argued today that same-gender equality is a key ingredient to the nation’s largest metropolis.

“That has always been what sets us apart. In our city, there is no shame in being true to yourself. There is only pride. We take you as you are and we let you be who you wish to be,” he said.

Hashem yeracheim.

{AP/CBS/NBC/Matzav.com Newscenter}


23 COMMENTS

  1. Mayor Bloomberg demeans the brave suffragettes of the 19th and 20th centuries, and all the more so the Negroes who were stripped of their humanity. A shameful analogy.

  2. Bloomberg put it so eloquently, “we cannot betray our civic values and history” by denying these young men and women the rights they deserve!

  3. This illegitimate Mayor is causing a terrible Chillul Hashem & is a Soneh Hashem R”L! Vichal oyvecha meheira yekareisu! Just watch, now, for his disgracefull downfall!

  4. 5. Comment from Brain Dead
    Time May 26, 2011 at 4:37 PM

    Maybe soon you will be able to marry your cat or dog. Will their gender matter?

    Your comment is so stupid that it is not fit to wrap the garbage. Your screen name would appears to describe you and your mindset completely accurately.

  5. Wealth can make a person arrogant as the Torah teaches us.

    He thinks he knows better than Hashem.

    Well, Hashem can throw him down from his lofty perch very easily.

    He better repent while he can.

  6. “I agree with #6… Bloomberg has a point, we can’t deny these people the lives they wish to live!”

    are you even jewish? because this is a jewish web site and I would appreciate if you would not post apikursus.

  7. So intelligent, so bright, yet so, so, morally stupid!

    A true Tinnuk Shenishbah.

    How do we get these Neshamos back?

    Oh how painful it is to see how far our poor brothers have strayed!

    Riboino Shel Oilam, please bring Moshiach!

  8. In todays secular society, same gender marriage and regular marriage is pretty much like a choice between vanilla or chocolate flavored ice cream. Parents will be telling their kid “when you get older you’ll marry either a man or woman, your choice. we’ve seen whats happened after the feminist movement;men have become women. I hate to see what will happen next.

  9. #15 is right.

    It should be called toeivah ‘marriage’, what it is, rather than switching to more innocuous sounding terminology which make it sound less threatening, as the toeivah advocates want it to be perceived, R”L.

    Please correct this and bring back the old Matzav terminology ASAP.

  10. #13 Im confused as to your definition of apikorsus. Is it apikorsus to say that the state has no buusiness making adultery illegal? Is it apikorsus to say the state has no buisness making ever min hacahi illegal? I would imagine youd say no since, people have a right to live the way they want to live, even if it is a life of sin and even if it is one of the most depraved sins out there.
    Does that now make you an apikoras?

  11. To 10: there’s civil unions, and there’s marriage.
    This underscores the need for education and for the olam haTorah to have a cogent vocabulary for discussion. We can’t just say, No, because; we need to be able to express our position in the age old style of divrei chachamim with all the conviction of a Rabbi Avigdor Miller, zt”l.

  12. To #9: #5’s comment is on the mark! (Brain dead or not!)

    It’s called Lezeinussah De-avoidah zarah-the avoidah zarah here being-The belief in the absolute right and the respect for: Any & all forms of Hedonism.

    Then again, it may not even be a joke.The Ramban says that excessive permissiveness and non-curbing of one’s desires, leads to the abomination being promoted now by the mayor, and ultimately to what # 5 is referring to.

  13. To #’s 10 and”6:
    You are making a crucial mistake. No one is telling these people how they may or may not live (we live that to the Eibishter).

    The same-gender marriage law isn’t telling these people they can’t get married, either, if they can find someone to do it.

    What the same-gender marriage law is promoting is the redefinition of the word marriage, a word that once upon a time had a connotation of holiness even among the goyim, saying that same-gender marriage is on equal footing with what we have always defined as marriage, and giving those so “married” the same financial, civil etc. benefits that married couples have.

    And that is reprehensible.

  14. @Takealook you are correct. They are redefining the word “marriage” in a grand social experiment that is against the Torah and has the potential to anger Hashem and destroy society.

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