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Catholic Ping
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Posted on 11/24/2009 4:29:47 PM PST by NYer
The New York State Catholic Conference reports that homosexual-rights activists received a setback by state Court of Appeals rulings last week.
According to the New York State Catholic Conference, the New York State Court of Appeals did rule in favor of the plaintiffs in Godfry v. Spano and Lewis v. NYS Department of Civil Service regarding the state’s recognition of same-sex “marriages” from other states.
However, the Catholic Conference’s director of communications, Dennis Poust, characterized it as a defeat for the plaintiffs. Basically, the ruling said that the state civil service could give all the rights of married (heterosexual) couples under state law to same-sex couples that were “married” in a jurisdiction where it was considered legal, such as Massachusetts, Connecticut or Canada.
“While the court affirmed the rights of civil service to provide those benefits,” said Poust, “what it didn’t do is go the step the gay-rights activists wanted, and that was to impact the state marriage recognition law, which is much broader.”
He explained the court ruling was limited to state workers. Impacting the marriage-recognition law would have applied the ruling to all employers, private and public, and would have given same-sex “married” couples every right of (heterosexual) married couples.
“Then employers would be required to offer spousal benefits to them, too,” he said. “But the court declined to take that step. That was really a setback for the homosexual-rights advocates who hoped to use these cases to force recognition.”
The Spano case applied only to Westchester County, but the Lewis case applied to all state workers, rendering the Spano case moot.
“The court’s ruling in this case was so narrow that by any measure, it must be considered a victory for New Yorkers who oppose the redefinition of the timeless institution of marriage,” said Richard Barnes, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference. “The court merely held that the state Department of Civil Service and Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano (defeated in November 2009 elections) were within their legal authority to extend marital benefits to ‘spouses’ of civil employees. However, the state specifically declined to expand the ruling to alter the state’s marriage-recognition law, which means the ruling has no impact on private employers and no applicability at all other than the provision of employee benefits to the state’s public workforce.”
Barnes further explained that, as it did in a 2006 ruling, the court left it to the state Legislature to define marriage in New York.
Said Barnes, “In its decision yesterday, the court expressed hope that ‘the Legislature will address this controversy.’ This is a curious statement in that, as this very court made clear in the 2006 case, state law prohibits same-sex ‘marriage.’ Therefore, the Legislature is addressing it by its inaction to change it. If it is the will of the Legislature not to redefine marriage, there is no action necessary; it is already the law of the state.”
Consequently, the conference said the rulings “are characterized as a defeat because they (activists) were hoping for a much broader ruling.”
Keep up those prayers!
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
They don’t want the same ‘rights’, they want to destroy marriage.
You've got it!! Last week I saw a "shim", dressed in clerical garb, on line to go through security at the Capitol, in order to 'encourage' the members of the assembly to support gay marriage. Simply nauseating!
They can never destroy marriage, because ours depends on ourselves, not others.
They can, however, make everybody else pay for their idiocy...
Yes, they will continue to redefine and redefine marriage, until it has no meaning at all and becomes rather a joke.
I know what they’re doing.
That has been the intention of homosexual 'marriage' activists, from the beginning.
I’m reading an awesome book right now -
Truth and Transformation.
One of the points made was that the institution of marriage as biblically defined (one man, one woman, for life) is the only “configuration” that leads to the empowerment of women and the sustainability of society.
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