New York Reinforces Marriage Discrimination

The Orwellianly named Marriage Equality Act, now the law in the State of New York, further solidifies the state's power to restrict who can get married, and who cannot. Far from granting marriage rights to all people equally, it merely broadens the category of whom may marry.

And it's not merely an oversight: the law states explicitly that the intent is to only allow homosexual marriages that would be otherwise legal, if not for the fact of the two partners being of the same sex. So other marriages are intentionally and explicitly left out of this legislation. There is no actual equality here: the marriage of gay brothers -- despite the fact that there is absolutely no more reason to restrict their marriage than there is that of any other gay couple -- is still illegal under New York law.

If we want to talk equality, then let's be honest and truly equal; otherwise, as in this case, "equality" is just a synonym for selfishness.

At least New York went through the legislature, rather than trying to shoehorn anti-equality rules into the 14th Amendment, such as David Boies and Ted Olson are doing in the federal case against California's Prop. 8. If you want to discriminate against incestuous marriages, fine, but don't pretend the 14th Amendment says it's not OK to discriminate against gays, but it is OK to discriminate against siblings.