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.
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.