Because of something I just heard on The Stephanie Miller Show, I want to make something perfectly clear. I am a straight man in America and I believe in gay rights!

Honestly I don't think there's a lot to comment about with the recent vote on same-sex marriage in New York. Sure, there are some on the fringe who will look at this as the start of end times, pointing to all sorts of religious reasons why homosexuality is wrong. As cruel as it sounds, these would be the same people who thought giving blacks equal rights was a bad idea, or who thought blacks and whites going to school together would cause irrevocable harm to the moral fabric of the nation.

The United States is new in terms of world governments but it's a tough country. We may have to get people kicking and screaming into actually doing what is said in the constitution, but time tends to thin out their numbers and the vast majority of people, who want nothing more than to live their lives as they wish and not hurt anyone, will win out.

Now, when I heard about the bill passing, and watched the cheering in the streets and the inevitable people on Facebook and Twitter jumping on the jubilant bandwagon, there was a small little sentence that drew my attention and gave me some pause. Apparently, in order to pass the bill, the state Assembly had to make an amendment to their bill to match that of the state Senate. The change “carried additional exemptions for religious organizations that do not want to acknowledge or extend benefits to gays who married,” as quoted by the LA Times.

Those words left a bitter feeling in my mind because while I could see the victory on a secular level, this bill was specific in talking about recognizing gay marriages and while many may want to think about marriage as nothing more than a sheet of paper, the worldwide, and especially the United States fascination with the Royal Wedding a few months ago, with all the religious trappings, says something about religious involvement with marriage. As one person put it, heterosexuals can go to almost any church and get married, even if they have had sex before marriage, but a majority of those same churches probably would still deny a same sex celibate couple of marrying. Another ramification mentioned in the LA Times article had to do with adoption. A gay couple will not be able to sue a religious organization if they are denied the right to adopt a child through the agency.

There's something else to consider, while New York did something historic, being one of six states that allows the recognition of same sex marriages, 30 states have passed legislation to ban same sex marriages, and California is in a court fight over Proposition 8.

While this is a major victory, the fight isn't over, not by a long shot. Even counting that President Obama is considered somewhat of a champion of gay rights, with the strides he has made in the past few years, he still finds it hard to say he is for gay marriage. Saying that his position is 'evolving' sounds more like the infamous “I didn't inhale.”

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Gay Marriage in New York - June 27, 2011
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