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Monday, May 18, 2009

Assemblyman Benjamin blasts gay marriage



State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. isn't the only Bronx politician who's anti-gay marriage. Riverdale Review reporter Candice Giove took this footage of Assemblyman Michael Benjamin speaking at Sunday's rally outside Governor Paterson's Midtown offices.

"They call us prejudiced, they call us bigots, they call us un-American, we are not," a fired-up Benjamin told the crowd. "... if we don't say no to gay marriage in New York, it will spread across the entire nation."

According to this list, Benjamin was one of two Bronx assembly members to give last week's gay marriage vote the thumbs down. The other being Nelson Castro. (Carl Heastie was marked down as "excused." The others voted in favor.)

Perhaps Benjamin's position shouldn't come as a surprise. Check out the reader comments at the end of this video post by Gary Axelbank.

UPDATE: Candice tells us she was covering the rally for the Village Voice. Read her story here.

1 comment:

  1. i am aghast at the assemblyman's rhetoric, as we all should be. he has apparently forgotten what he learned in his social studies classes at bronx science about the separation of church and state and the constitution that governs this great nation.

    also, he, of all people, ought to know the tragic history of what happens when elected officials clutch their bibles in the face of basic democratic principals. it happened in the south, it happened in germany, and it's happening right now in afghanistan and pakistan. clearly, assemblyman benjamin must also support the now-documented bush/rumsfeld religious crusade that has turned our world upside down.

    rather than restate what i said in my video commentary and in subsequent blog postings on the subject of gay marriage, i'll excerpt this old song lyric:

    Come gather 'round people
    Wherever you roam
    And admit that the waters
    Around you have grown
    And accept it that soon
    You'll be drenched to the bone.
    If your time to you
    Is worth savin'
    Then you better start swimmin'
    Or you'll sink like a stone
    For the times they are a-changin'.

    Come senators, congressmen
    Please heed the call
    Don't stand in the doorway
    Don't block up the hall
    For he that gets hurt
    Will be he who has stalled
    There's a battle outside
    And it is ragin'.
    It'll soon shake your windows
    And rattle your walls
    For the times they are a-changin'.

    The line it is drawn
    The curse it is cast
    The slow one now
    Will later be fast
    As the present now
    Will later be past
    The order is
    Rapidly fadin'.
    And the first one now
    Will later be last
    For the times they are a-changin'.

    ReplyDelete

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