New Yorkers Celebrate the Legalization of Gay Marriage
The Catholic Church Weighs In
New York's Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan was one of the state's most ardent opponents of the move to legalize gay marriage. He chose to issue a rallying cry on his blog prior to the state Senate vote in a novel but bellicose way. "We are living in New York, in the United States of America — not in China or North Korea. In those countries, government presumes daily to 'redefine' rights, relationships, values, and natural law. There, communiques from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of 'family' and 'marriage' means." In a statement released on June 25, the morning after the bill's passage, Dolan said he was disappointed that the legislature had chosen to "alter radically and forever humanity's historic understanding of marriage."