Foe of Gay Marriage in New York Says It’s Nothing Personal

He is not a homophobe. That does not, however, mean that he is not a bigot.

What a complete DICK.

“My religion doesn’t allow me to dance,” he said.“But that does not mean I don’t go to the party. My religion doesn’t allow me to drink. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hang around with my friends. My religion is against gay marriage. It means, I don’t agree with what you do. But let’s go out. Let’s go to the movies. Let’s be friends.”

Let's legislate your lives so everyone has to live how I believe!

Yes Senator it is personal. It's very easy to talk about ideals, but we are talking about U.S. Citizens being denied legal equal protection under the law. We are talking about people's LIVES. That IS personal. But you are OK with that as evidenced by your personal crusade against us. Whenever the issue relates to GLBT Citizens being treated as decent human beings, you oppose it. THAT IS PERSONAL.

Reason wrote:

He is not a homophobe. That does not, however, mean that he is not a bigot.

Not a homophobe? He has three gay relatives he claims to love, yet he uses christian idiocy to justify discrimination against them. Sounds pretty homophobic to me.

This article, and the statements of Sen. Diaz Sr., show how frustrating it is in the struggle for simple equality same-sex couples. He asks rhetorically how he can be a homophobe, when members of his own family and friends are gay? The blatant hypocrisy in his statement is matched only by his incredible ignorance of such. How can one reason with someone so blind as to the discrimination they practice; so blind as to the harm they cause to the very people he professes to love? One cannot help but wonder as to how many 19th century slave owners convinced themselves of the same sort of feelings of friendship and family to their slaves so as to justify their tyranny. What does society think of them now?

It is equally startling to hear him justify his opposition to same-sex marriage, in part, because “The people of the nation don’t want gay marriage.” Such a nice overreaching and generic conclusion there, considering “the people” he’s referring to represent the slightest of majorities as evidenced in Maine and California. Had the vote in Maine and California been reversed, and 53% or so of voters had supported same-sex marriages, would he now be saying “The people of the nation want gay marriage”? I don’t think so. And ignoring for the moment, again, the inherent unfairness of putting civil rights up to a popular vote, perhaps Sen. Diaz should remember that a far larger majority of people disapproved of interracial marriages by the time the Supreme Court ruled on the issue in the 1960s. What did he think of “majority rule” then?

It is all well and good, senator, that your religion forbids you to dance or to drink. Those are self-imposed limitations on your OWN behavior that you willingly accept and adapt. But where do you get off using your religion to impose limitations on OTHERS for simply existing as who they ARE, not what they do? I am certain I can find some precept in my own religion that would deny you some type of right or privilege, senator, but where do I have the right to impose that on you? I don’t, just as you have no right to impose your religious views on others by using that religion to deny equal rights to same-sex couples.

It seems clear that this particular senator, either through deliberate refusal to see what’s right, or a complete inability to do so (and in my opinion it’s a combination of both), will not be changing his mind. He may view such intractability as a virtue, but I have a feeling his friends and family know better. And I'm certain that when (not if) the right for same-sex marriage comes, posterity will look upon Sen. Diaz Sr. and opponents of equality in the light they unknowingly welcome, and so richly deserve.

Of course it's personal! It's against his personal, moral, ethical, and religious beliefs. I would have more respect for the man if he'd just come out and say that instead of a stupid statment like, "It's nothing personal!" Excuse me while I laugh my as* off.

"So how could I be a homophobe?

Anyone remember when THIS phrase was tossed about"

"Some of my best friends are black."

HA HA you lose again and again and you still don't get it.You can't force something that isn't NORMAL on normal people and you never will.The more you demand the less you will get.When normal people see the way you mock God in your Freak Gay parade in San Francisco each year and PUSH going into church with their Freak show you piss them off, but you still don't get it, and you never will.You make people hate you.

Queers have the same rights as everybody else, sad to say. They should be shunned but the law protects them against that. A union between two males or two females can never be considered a marriage. If you want to play house, go ahead and do it. But until you figure out a way to knock up you boyfriend that's all it is, playing house.

Put a cork in it:

Then, you're advocating withholding marital rights from Heterosexual couples who either refuse, or are unable to get knocked up as well?

voice from the desert wrote:

HA HA you lose again and again and you still don't get it.You can't force something that isn't NORMAL on normal people and you never will.The more you demand the less you will get.When normal people see the way you mock God in your Freak Gay parade in San Francisco each year and PUSH going into church with their Freak show you piss them off, but you still don't get it, and you never will.You make people hate you.

Have you ever heard of the Constitution? Separation of Church and State and all?
Let me put it to you like this, since you reek of bigotry. Let's suppose for a minute that the majority of Americans are Muslim and they want to deny YOU the right to marry because you do not believe as they do and they view you as an abomination.
Now the shoe's on the other foot -- what do you have to say to that?

Yes, it IS personal. You have attacked us, those we love and our families. You don't have friends that you tell: "I love you, I just don't want you to have equal rights or be happy." That would be the statement of an enemy, which is what bigots are. That you have stabbed your LGBT "friends" and family in the back does not earn you a merit badge or lessen your hypocricy and bigotry one bit.