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.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Assemblyman Benjamin blasts gay marriage
Labels:
Gay Marriage,
Michael Banjamin,
ruben diaz sr.
1 comment:
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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.
ReplyDeletealso, 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'.