In light of New York recently passing a law allowing homosexuals to marry, we commented on where we see the issue heading.

Whenever the American people have had a chance to approve gay marriage, they have rejected it. In the more than 30 states that have put this issue to a vote, homosexuals have never won. The only arenas they have been able to score a victory in are some state legislatures and courts. In other words, this is a classic case of the people vs. the elites.

Ultimately, this issue will not be resolved in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court: it will be decided by a constitutional amendment. Though the Federal Marriage Amendment prevailed in the House in 2006 by a margin of 236-187, it failed to achieve the necessary 290 votes required to pass a constitutional amendment; two-thirds of both chambers of Congress, and three-fourths of the states (38), are needed.

Standing in the way of a constitutional amendment is the legitimate reluctance on the part of federal lawmakers to decide what many believe to be a matter for the states. But given that we are left with the scenario of the people vs. the elites, we are quickly reaching a tipping point. When that happens, chances are good that this issue will be resolved by a constitutional amendment.

Currently, 30 states have constitutional language defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. At the federal level, the Defense of Marriage Act also defines marriage in the traditional sense. But unless there is a constitutional amendment, we will continue to have an uneven playing field, one that is ripe for further exploitation. Once marriage is separated from procreation, and Tom and Dick are allowed to marry, there is no principled reason why Tom, Dick and Harry can’t do so. After all, wouldn’t it be discrimination to say no to Harry?

Prior to the passing of the New York State bill legalizing same-sex marriage, we issued a news release stating that New York does not believe in “power to the people.” If it did, it would have submitted the issue of redefining marriage to a ballot initiative.
Had they done this, however, they knew that they would have lost: in the more than 30 states which have put this matter to a vote, never once have the people failed to affirm marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Only elites differ with that judgment.

What held up the passage of the bill was pressure from Catholics, Protestants, Jews and others: they wanted to insulate religious institutions from state encroachment. That they had to fight for their First Amendment rights shows how threatening same-sex marriage legislation really is.

The threats to religious liberty are not hypothetical. A New Mexico photographer who refused to photograph a gay couple’s commitment ceremony was forced to pay the couple’s attorney’s fees; Christians in New Jersey who objected to allowing a gay union ceremony in their privately owned facility have had their tax-exempt status stripped; a psychologist from Georgia was fired after she declined to counsel a lesbian about her relationship. And so on.

In other words, there are real concerns that since same-sex marriage has passed in New York, religious liberty may be jeopardized. That is why it was imperative that religious rights be firmly locked in from the get-go.

Finally, it is nothing if not bizarre to insist that marriage be extended to two people who are positively disqualified by nature, and nature’s God, from starting a family.

Before the New York State legislature decided whether to ratify homosexual marriage, we thought it would be nice if the lawmakers would ask what in the world is going on in the gay community.

A June report issued by the NYC Health Department, “Take Care New York 2012: Tracking the City’s Progress,” showed that while progress is being made to stem smoking, the intake of sugary drinks, and teenage pregnancies, we are going backwards on preventing sexually transmitted diseases among gays.

Between 2007-2009, there was a 6 percent decrease in gay men using condoms. Each year, homosexuals account for 60 percent of all newly diagnosed HIV infections; in addition, 60 percent of gays who have syphilis also have HIV. Moreover, 85 percent of gays with syphilis continue to have sex.

It can’t be said that lack of education is the problem. In the last few years, New York City has featured a condom wrapping design contest, and has posted an NYC Condom Facebook page. Also, there is an NYC Condom Finder, a free app that uses GPS to find them. Moreover, condoms are distributed at 45 different events, including LGBT Pride events. During the years when condom use by gays declined, New York City gave away approximately 40 million free condoms per year!

It’s time for gay leaders to address this issue. While they’re at it, maybe they could address why, unlike all other parades in New York City, the organizers of the Gay Pride Parade, must warn marchers not to go naked in the streets. The public has a right to know.

Priests who engage in lewd conversations with teenagers are suspended from ministry for committing a “boundary violation,” and are charged with sexual abuse. But disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner can send pornographic pictures of himself to young girls and he is free as a bird. Indeed, prior to his resignation, the majority of New Yorkers said that he should not resign.

Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle said Weiner’s “biggest sin may not have been sexual”—it was “lying.” Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said that “Lying is unforgivable,” but had no comment on the sexual offenses. Joan Walsh of Salon confessed that “The lying is what disturbs me.” S.E. Cupp’s article in the New York Daily News was flagged, “The disgraced congressman should resign, but immorality has nothing to do with it.” Similarly, Leslie Savan of the Nationwondered, “How can you be so stupid?”

Ilene Angel of the Huffington Post opined, “I honestly don’t care” what Weiner did. Glenn Greenwald of Salon chalked it all up to “voyeuristic fun.” Conor Friedersdorf in the Atlantic contended that we, the people, are the problem: we spend too much time “focusing on the sexual behavior of egocentric alpha males who spend a lot of time traveling far from home.” In a Time interview, Erica Jong not only gave Weiner a pass, she exculpated Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Rep. Chris Lee,  Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer: they all suffer from “a form of mental illness.”

To top things off, Joy Behar believed that “Somebody is out to get him, apparently ‘cause they don’t like his politics.” Weiner agreed: he told a donor that this was all due to a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

In other words, if the guilty party were Rev. Weiner, he would have been sanctioned by the Church’s “zero tolerance” policy.  As usual, it wasn’t the offense that mattered—it was the status of the offender.

On a recent episode of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” the host joked about Rep. Anthony Weiner’s situation with correspondent John Oliver. During their skit, Stewart ridiculed Weiner by sipping frantically on a Margarita, imitating the way Weiner sips from a water bottle.

Stewart then accidentally broke his glass. Oliver, seeing Stewart’s hand bleeding, joked, “Don’t be so Jewish about it. You’re fine, you’re absolutely fine.”

On Yahoo! News, in both the video clip and the news story, this is where the skit ended. But on the show, it continued with Stewart replying, “I should be Catholic. I should turn this into a drink,” referring to his blood.

Weiner sends porn pictures to strangers and his buddy Stewart laughed it off. This is to be expected as the ethical bar for people like Stewart and Weiner is quite low. But for Stewart to impulsively lash out at the heart of Catholicism—when discussing a subject that has nothing to do with it—reveals a side to him that is troubling. Indeed, it suggests that it doesn’t take much to bring out the worst in Stewart: when the bigotry is visceral, the pus gushes to the surface at the slightest rub. He owes Catholics an apology.

Moreover, Yahoo! News was singularly dishonest in the way it tried to paper over Stewart’s insulting remark: it deliberately cut his offensive quip, knowing full well it would have put the skit in a totally different light. Catholics deserve an explanation

On the June 14 “Late Show with David Letterman,” the CBS host said he was “stunned” and “fascinated” by Anthony Weiner’s predicament. He then said the following: “Honest to God, is this the kind of behavior you’d expect from a congressman? No. In simple terms, no. It is not the kind of behavior you’d expect from a congressman. It is the kind of behavior you’d expect from a priest.”

In addition to Rep. Weiner, the following members of Congress have been involved in cases of sexual improprieties in recent years: Rep. Chris Lee, Rep. Mark Souder, Rep. Eric Massa, Rep. Vito Fossella, Rep. Mark Foley, Rep. Gerry Studds, Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. Daniel Crane, Sen. Larry Craig, Sen. David Vitter, Sen. John Edwards and Sen. John Ensign. In addition, the following governors have a sordid record: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. Jim Gibbons, Gov. Jim McGreevey, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Gov. Mark Sanford.

Regarding priests, 149 of them are responsible for 27 percent of all the alleged cases of abuse over the past half-century—out of a total of 100,000 priests. More important, almost no priests today are the subject of allegations.

We know one thing for sure: the average person working for David Letterman is far more likely to have been the subject of sexual harassment—by him, no less—than those working for a priest. Perhaps the next time he will be more accurate and compare himself to Weiner

Recently, the Boston Globe responded to Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s decision to halt a Mass honoring Gay Pride Month at St. Cecilia’s in Boston.

In an editorial, the Globe pretended that “No one would have had the misimpression that the church was endorsing gay sex” by allowing the Mass to be said. Columnist Kevin Cullen also played the role of virgin, wondering why anyone would think that such a Mass might turn the church “into an outpost of Sodom.”

The front-page news story went one better, maintaining that the Boston archdiocese “gave the impression that St. Cecilia’s supported the annual Gay Pride Celebration.” The priest behind the Mass, Rev. John Unni, also feigned ignorance, saying of the Gay Pride agenda, “I don’t know what that is.”

Sounds like they all need a reality check. In the June 5 weekly bulletin of St. Cecilia’s, it stated quite plainly, “The Rainbow Ministry of Saint Cecilia Parish invites all friends and supporters of the LGBT community to a Mass in celebration of Boston’s Pride Month.” (Our italics.) So there was no need to lie about the purpose of the event.

Gay Pride Month, for the uninitiated, is not exactly like Black History Month: the latter commemorates the achievements of African Americans, while the former celebrates libertinism. That’s why African Americans do not appear naked on their floats. Nor do they engage in simulated sex. While evidently the marchers managed to keep their shorts on this year, they’ve had difficulty doing so in the past. In the late 1990s, naked women fondled each other on a mattress, and a man on stilts exposed himself, and yet the same Boston Globe that likes to lecture the Catholic Church said absolutely nothing about it.

At Boston’s Gay Pride Parade, men dressed in leather—along with their trusty harnesses—marched alongside the drag queens and dancing go-go guys, while the boys from MassEquality “gyrated on a flatbed.” As usual, organized homosexuals mocked nuns. But none of this disturbs theBoston Globe. Indeed, it pretends not to know what’s going on!

The day after the Boston Globe lectured the Archdiocese, there appeared a column by Brian McGrory about Rev. Charles Murphy, a priest twice sued by attorney Mitchell Garabedian.

In 2006, Father Murphy was sued for improperly touching a minor, a girl who claimed the incident occurred 25 years prior. Father Murphy maintained his innocence, and on the eve of the trial, the woman dropped her suit.

In 2010, Father Murphy was sued by a man who alleged that he was fondled 40 years before. The accuser, it turns out, was deep in debt and had his credibility questioned even by his family members. Father Murphy was exonerated after an archdiocesan review board took six months to examine the charges.

Father Murphy died in June, a broken man. McGrory called what Garabedian did “a disgrace.”

The day the column appeared, Bill Donohue called Garabedian and simply asked the lawyer if he had any regrets for pressing charges against Father Murphy. Garabedian responded by screaming at the top of his lungs. Indeed, he went ballistic, bellowing how he lost his case because of the archdiocese’s “kangaroo court.” Donohue asked him several times to calm down and to speak rationally, but instead he engaged in more boilerplate, making sweeping condemnations of Boston priests.

It is a sad day when a priest is falsely accused of sexual abuse. It is even sadder when it happens a second time. Sadder still is the scenario where a falsely accused priest goes to his deathbed suffering such indignation. It is worse than sad—it is obscene—when lawyers who lose in their bid to take down an innocent priest not only express no remorse, they behave like barbarians

We recently commented on the death of assisted-suicide physician Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Unlike his lucky “patients,” “Dr. Death” Kevorkian died of natural causes, wholly unassisted by physicians.

He had much in common with the doctors of Weimar, Germany, who perfected the sick idea of “Healing by Killing.” Kevorkian, whose favorite motto was, “Ready or not, here I come,” shared with those German doctors the same philosophical mindset that paved the way for Hitler.

Kevorkian’s hatred of the Catholic Church, and his irrational attacks on the pope, were actually a backhanded compliment to the Church’s embrace of the dignity that inheres in every human being.

We are happy he did not suffer in his final hours. But we note with great irony that the nurses at the hospital played recordings by Bach as he died. What we have not learned is whether they treated him to Bach’s “Mass in B minor.”

At their June meeting outside of Seattle, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) passed a statement on physician-assisted suicide much to the chagrin of the “Aid in Dying” crowd.

 Those who delight in helping people die like to invoke the values of compassion and choice. Indeed, Compassion and Choices (C&C) is the name of the organization previously known as the Hemlock Society. They were none too happy with the bishops, and that is because the Catholic hierarchy values life over death. The head of C&C, Barbara Coombs Lee, said it “alarms us” to see the bishops “use their standing” to work against her agenda.

In its statement, the USCCB addressed the issue of choice, counseling that “even apparently free choices may be unduly influenced by the biases and wishes of others.” Addressing the matter of compassion, the body pointedly said, “True compassion alleviates suffering while maintaining solidarity with those who suffer. It does not put lethal drugs in their hands and abandon them to their suicidal impulses, or to the self-serving motives of others who may want them dead.” It also noted that “Dutch doctors, who once limited euthanasia to terminally ill patients, now provide lethal drugs to people with chronic illnesses and disabilities, mental illness, and even melancholy.”

Not surprisingly, C&C praises “Dr. Death”, Jack Kevorkian, for his groundbreaking work, though they caution it is “safer” to stay within the law. More important, C&C is top-heavy with pro-abortion activists.

Lee is a champion of abortion rights, and so is Patty Berg, a former state official and member of the board of directors. Ditto for several ministers who are on the advisory board, including the infamous Rev. John Shelby Spong. Donors include David Rockefeller and the NYS NARAL Foundation. A real standout is the anti-Catholic gay phenom from San Francisco, Mark Leno: he likes to make his contributions in the name of Dr. Death.

Pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia—that’s what makes C&C tick. To say they are deadly consistent is an understatement.