Posted on 01/19/2014 6:34:38 PM PST by NYer
I was born in New York State and have lived here for more than 61 years. During that time I have paid plenty in state and local taxes and have served the public in a number of capacities including two terms as Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
I am also a Catholic and a member of New York’s Conservative Party, have served on the transition teams of governors-elect George Pataki (R) and Andrew Cuomo (D), and have been a member of Cuomo’s Council of Economic and Fiscal Advisors.
Yet despite my public service and the large chunk of my earnings that have gone to support New York’s governmental maze, according to Governor Cuomo, I should move out of the Empire State.
Why? Because I am pro-life, oppose same-sex marriage, and have doubts about Cuomo’s 2013 hastily prepared gun legislation (the SAFE Act) that permits you to buy a gun with a 10-round magazine, but bans using more than seven shots if you need to defend yourself.
Here’s what Cuomo said this past Friday on “The Capital Pressroom,” an Albany radio talk show, about a large segment of NY voters:
Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right to life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.
In an unguarded moment, Governor Cuomo stated publicly what many on the Left have been privately thinking for years: that pro-life and pro-traditional marriage supporters are Ku Klux Klan-like bigots who should either shut up or get out.
Cuomo has not only written off millions of New York Christians and Jews (among others) as unfit citizens, he has yanked the welcome mat from under half the nation’s population, who, public opinion polls indicate, oppose abortion and same-sex marriage.
As for those who “have no place in the state of New York,” the person at the top of that list must be the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan. That’s because Dolan has proudly followed in the footsteps of his predecessors who were unabashed defenders of Church teachings in the public square.
For instance, Cardinal Terence Cooke, NYC’s seventh archbishop (1968-1983), whose cause is being promoted for sainthood, publicly fought the passage of the state’s 1970 liberal abortion bill. And the week Roe v. Wade was handed down by the Supreme Court, he issued a pastoral letter that was read in every parish condemning abortion as a “fundamental moral evil.” Cooke inaugurated the annual Respect Life week and established “Birth Right,” a service to help pregnant women who choose not to abort their babies.
1977: Andrew Cuomo watches his father concede the New York City mayoral race.
As for “gay rights,” every year Cooke opposed proposed legislation in New York’s City Council that would have amended the administrative code to outlaw discrimination due to “sexual orientation or affectional preference.” You read that right.
A typical statement expressing the Church’s position, released by Cardinal Cooke in April 1978, reads:
If the bill has an underlying purpose, to advocate and gain approval of homosexual behavior and lifestyle, then there is no way in which the Catholic Church in the City of New York may find it acceptable. And there is no way in which we can remain silent on the issue.The Catholic Church’s moral teaching differentiates between “orientation” and “behavior” for both homosexuals and heterosexuals. While a person’s orientation is not subject to moral evaluation, there is no doubt that a person’s behavior is subject to evaluation. Homosexual behavior and an attendant homosexual life style is not in accord with Catholic moral teaching and is, in fact, harmful to all persons who become involved; heterosexuality is the norm for human behavior.
And lest we forget, in the mid-1970s Cooke had an ally in his fight against abortion and gay rights: Mario Cuomo, father of the current governor.
The New York Times reported during Cuomo the Elder’s unsuccessful 1974 primary run for lieutenant governor that he said in a televised debate that “he would have voted against the 1970 law that relaxed abortion curbs in the state.” The New York Daily News and the Post also reported that, in his unsuccessful 1977 run for mayor, Mario said he would veto a gay rights bill “that would give homosexual teachers the right to proselytize or advocate their lifestyle.”
I wonder if Governor Andrew Cuomo, a baptized Catholic and a graduate of Archbishop Molloy High School and Fordham University, will demand that Cooke’s cause for canonization be, well, aborted because the cardinal was an “extremist” for defending the teachings of his Church. Will ask his father, himself a former governor, to leave the state for having politically incorrect thoughts forty years ago?
By claiming that people who disagree with his cultural views “have no place in the state of New York,” Cuomo has joined those whom historian Richard Hofstadter described as “totalitarian liberals,” people who employ illiberal means to achieve so-called liberal reforms.
Cardinal Dolan and the bishops of New York’s other eight dioceses have an obligation to respond and to condemn anyone – especially any Catholic public figure – who threatens those who adhere to Church doctrine.
Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George has predicted that he will die in his bed, his successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr. We may not be quite there yet. But unless Church leaders and others act quickly and forcefully, Catholics and others of traditional moral views may find themselves not simply marginalized, but – if some politicians have their way – facing something very like exile in their own nation.
It was tough for him to be a bigger jerk than his father, but he did it.
As opposed to those other kinds of liberals... uh... wait a minute...
When Paul Castellano , a big Mafia boss was murdered in 1985 by rival mobsters, Cardinal O’Connor denied him a Catholic burial and entombment in a Catholic cemetery due to his open, unrepentant criminal life. Cardinal Dolan needs to do some serious thinking and reflection.
Cuomo is a Democrat and that’s how they think. Vote them out, vote them all out!
Here to contact the nut:
http://www.governor.ny.gov/contact/GovernorContactForm.php
Here is the thread from last few days:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3112960/posts
PFL
Notice the date of the exchange was last year. Cuomo’s statements, at that time, were mild by comparison to what he said this past Friday. Yet ... I have scoured the news links and fin absolutely nothing from Dolan since Friday. His silence is deafening. The old “slap on the back, wink & nod, happy go lucky” attitude will not cut it this time. He is a serious disappointment as archbishop.
We are attacking him left and right, He is doing a mea culpa and we are not backing down. Face book has exploded.
The date of that article was months ago, we have generations of this.
The leading Catholic figures in America are almost all like Cuomo and are leaders in the political party of most Catholics, did he actually single out Catholics as not welcome in NY?
I have to assume the "good bishop of Albany" has a sense of humor:
Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard says it is "unfair and imprudent" to conclude that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his girlfriend, Sandra Lee, shouldn't receive Communion simply because they're living together.
-- from the thread Bishop: None of your business (Hubbard rejects Catholic expert's criticism of Gov. Cuomo)
Here is a tweet from the actress Heaton
#Cuomo supports killing viable babies, exploiting poor women - still takes communion. #Gosnell #Carhart #Karpen #Brigham #Riley #Seletz
Patricia Heaton (@PatriciaHeaton) June 04, 2013
Perhaps this is the (new) face of the Catholic Church...If it is not, shouldn't take long for your pope to renounce this guy...
And yet the RINOS on our team try to reach out and find common ground with these lefty idiots. When will they figure out that the Dems want to take out every last one of us who is a non-liberal. They don’t want to find consensus with us. They want to destroy us!
Indeed!
Unfortunately, it's not a fantasy. Do you happen to recall the last two presidential elections?
‘By claiming that people who disagree with his cultural views have no place in the state of New York, Cuomo has joined those whom historian Richard Hofstadter described as totalitarian liberals, people who employ illiberal means to achieve so-called liberal reforms.’
Exactly.
Add Nancy Pelosi, pundit Chris Matthews, Sen. Richard Durbin, SOS John Kerry, and all of the ‘Catholic’ members of the Democrat caucus to that list of people that no Catholic concerned about his soul should associate with.
That doesn't seem to be the rule for black churches that often turn their pulpits over to Dem candidates.
You’re not alone.
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