Marriage Wins in New York: Senator Ruben Diaz is a �Man with a Chest�

By Deacon Keith Fournier
12/3/2009
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

'New York State Senate in a bipartisan vote rejected the concept that marriage can be anything other than the union of one man and one woman'.

Senator Ruben Diaz is what C.S. Lewis meant by a 'man with a chest'. He has courage and he should be commended. We need many more men and women like him in politics.

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ALBANY, N.Y. (Catholic Online) - Gov. David Paterson had made no secret of his intention to sign the Bill into Law in New York if it passed. Its proponents are allied with the radical fringe of the homosexual community. They were predicting its passage before the floor debate even began. Their strategy in New York followed the game plan of the homosexual equivalency movement, to use legislative or judicial maneuvers to change the law without a vote of the people.

After all, every time the effort has been placed before the people it has failed and marriage has been protected. In their effort to manufacture a legal equivalency between homosexual relationships and real marriage, the radical fringe of the homosexual community tries to use the language of "rights" and paint themselves out to be the victims. They actually just oppose marriage being what it is. They are a Marriage Opposition Movement. They commit what C.S. Lewis called �verbicide�, the murder of a word, when they try to steal the word.

Proponents speak of �opposite sex marriage� in an effort to carve out a place for themselves. They claim they want �marriage equality� in their verbal subterfuge. The truth is they oppose marriage being what it is. They are a Marriage Opposition Movement. They not only want to murder the word but replace the entire institution with a counterfeit. They call something which can never be a marriage a marriage and want to use the police power of the State to radically restructure society around their lifestyle.

The debate on the floor was heated and long. The disdain for the institution of marriage and desire to replace it was hidden in appeals trying to equate homosexual sexual acts and being African American. The use of the Civil Rights movement analogy is absurd but it is the rhetoric of the hour in this Cultural Revolution. The speeches were predictable and are beginning to sound scripted. However, one speech, given by Senator Ruben Diaz was different. He reminded his fellow legislators about moral values. He spoke the language of common sense.

He pointed out that adherents of the world's major religions all defend marriage against these efforts to undermine and replace it. He reminded his colleagues that in the 31 States where such a radical effort was attempted through a vote, all 31 efforts failed. He called on his colleagues to "�Remember your rules, remember your values� remember your family values, traditional values, moral values. Go back to the defense of your traditional values, join me a Democrat, join me a Hispanic, join me a black, join me a Puerto Rican, and join me in bringing a referendum to the people,"

His appeal was impassioned and sincere. He insisted that his position reflected the peoples� will that marriage is between one man and one woman. He said of the effort to use this procedural maneuver to change the law of New York - and call the relationship between homosexual paramours a �gay marriage� - that it was against the will of the people. He insisted ��Not only the evangelicals, not only the Jews, not only the Muslims, not only the Catholics, but � the people oppose it� If you put this issue before the voters in a referendum, the voters will reject it.�

In the end, his advocacy for marriage prevailed. This courageous representative is a Democrat with a heart for all of the poor, including our first neighbors, children in the womb. He is Pro-Life. He is a Protestant Minister with a thriving ministry. He is a true representative of the people and understands his obligations to discharge his public office with integrity and for the common good. Because he stood up � and stood out - the effort to amend New York State's Domestic Partnership Law to force the legalization of �homosexual marriage� failed by a bi-partisan vote of 38 to 24.

In 1947, one of the great Christian writers of the Second Millennium, C.S. Lewis addressed the decline of his beloved Britain. He warned of the subjective and relativist trends in the British educational system and reasserted the timeless moral truths of Christianity. Lewis called for a return to the classical Christian vision of the human person and the cultivation of virtues as the path to true human flourishing and freedom. He defined �the chest� in this work as the �higher emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments or character.� He wrote that without this �chest�, men and women devolve into self idolatry losing their human dignity and abandoning true freedom for a counterfeit. They become slaves to disordered appetites.

The West is in a mess, just as Lewis warned. With its decline we face the eclipse of true freedom and the exchange of liberty for license. Lewis� words in this book are timely: �And all the time � such is the tragicomedy of our situation � we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. ...

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1 - 10 of 41 Comments

JeanCatherine
3 years ago
Everyone support the people in California who kept traditional marriage on the books.

The fight is on in the courts so pray for the lawyers who are defending one man and one woman.

Also support those who honor the Courage Apostolate/Encourage.

Also check out the NARTH.org.

Also support
http://pfox.org/about_us.html

Found all above to be excellent websites.

Pray, pray and pray. Thanks and peace.
anzlyne
3 years ago
love reading the Deacon and love his choices of subjects and also love reading all these responses-- very interesting. wish we could all just agree first of all on a definition of terms (word meaning) then we could make progress. what does it mean to be "married" I'm also interested in what it means to be "on the wrong side of history" If history ultimately validates what is right or has been right in human interaction-- we'd better read it well
Maria
3 years ago
God bless you Senator Diaz for your courage in standing up for family values, if God had intended to make marriage between Two men or two women, he would not have created Eve or vise versa.
Pam
3 years ago
Thanks to Senator Diaz for speaking up for family values: man/father and woman/mother bring children into this world. This is the foundation of every society;it is called "marriage." There is no way to get around this fact of life. "Get over it" and find another word for homosexual unions.
Ed Burke
3 years ago
God is at work here !

Let no one deny his brilliance, his genius, or the power of his grace to change the sinner to saint.

I was reading Bishop Sheen, and astounded at his insight worthy of telling in this time of war between 'Moslem' fanatics and us. The Koran he points out reveres Mary, and even Mohammed says that no woman is above her in heaven, but second in his opinion is his daughter Fatima, for which a town in Portugal was named, one we Christians know as the only time in history the Most High 'scheduled' a miracle and foretold of it months in advance so that 70,000 people of every stripe could know that in the shadow of our troubled times our God is with us, and even the atheists saw the proof on that 13th day of October. Will Mary the Lady of Fatima convert the Moslems ? I think I'd bet my soul on it ! Pray the rosary, and watch the Miracle happen.
Jean
3 years ago
nietzche

Many blessings, so if God's dead, Where is the body?

Peace and Merry Christmas everyone.
Jean
3 years ago
Bulbajer

If you get the chance go over to the Courage Apostolate.

Also I recommend Father Harvey's book on Homosexuality and the Catholic Church Clear Answers to Difficult questions.

Also I hear that John Paul II's books on Theology of the Body are excellent.
Bulbajer
3 years ago
John, that argument, while valid, can be applied to an endless amount of situations. If the church places homosexuality as one of the chief evils in the U.S. today, won't that lead to increased hate for homosexual persons?
Different people have different traditions. When the Europeans came to the new world, they went about enforcing European tradition on the Native American culture without giving thought to why the cultures of those people were insufficient. Which traditions, such as heterosexual marriage, are universal is open to debate.
Margaret
3 years ago
God bless you, Senator Diaz. Continue please to speak out and defend not only the Christian values but also the natural law.
John
3 years ago
Some people simply cannot see past the end of the nose on their face. When you accept same sex marriage, you change a basic legal definition. That can unleash forces resulting in unintended consequences. If marriage is not strictly between one man and one woman, then why can't it be between one man and two women (or any other permutation and combination there of)? While this may seem absurd to most people, in a court of law it is a sound legal argument. It might not happen tomorrow, but rest assured, somewhere down the road some pioneering soul will try it. Then, some liberal judge will "see their point" and we will have plural marriage. If you don't think this is plausible, then I have to ask you this: Did anyone see partial birth abortion coming when Roe Vs Wade came about? Did anyone predict then that eventually children born accidentally from failed late term abortions would be put in a soiled linen closet to die? Yet, it happened. Do not be confused. This opposition to same sex marriage is not about being mean and "un-Christian like". It's about preserving the family unit as we know it for posterity. Passing same sex marriage might seem like a "feel good, right thing to do", but it is just another step in chipping away family values right along with rampant divorce, abortion, etc. Traditional values are the best values and that is what the Catholic Church stands for.

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