Daily Blague

Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind came out with a truly vulgar remark during the debate about AB 8590, the same-sex marriage bill that passed in the Assembly (it will not be considered anytime soon in the upstate, Republican controlled, Know-Nothing Senate).

If we authorize gay marriage in the state of New York, those who want to live and love incestuously will be five steps closer to achieving their goals as well.

Hasn't Assemblyman Hikind learned anything from the Nazi art of tribal slurs? The "five steps closer" is a truly gratuitous - meaningless - whack. The connection of homosexuality and incest is ludicrous.

David Pasteelnick, who writes Someone in a Tree, talked to the Assemblyman before the debate, and was all the more shocked by the remarks in the debate because Mr Hikind had been quite decent on the telephone. David wrote this linked letter, which ought to be read by everyone with a sound mind. Having noted that the Assemblyman claims that he would vote against the bill even if his constituents were for it, David muses on his hypocritical sense of representative democracy.

Putting that argument temporarily to the side, if you would govern as your faith dictates, why have you not put forward legislation that outlaws the sale of non-kosher products in the State of New York? I am sure a majority of your constituency would strongly support such a measure. Is it because while your district would be in favor, the majority of the citizens of this State would be against it? If you respect the majority in that regard, even though it flies in the face of a core belief of your faith, why is same-sex marriage any different? Recent polls show that a majority of the citizens of New York support, if not marriage, some type of formal recognition of same-sex relationships that offers them benefits on par with traditional marriage. Is your opposition to this equal treatment because, when it comes down to it, you just don’t like gay people? Or worse, you might even be afraid of them? Do you consider them, or rather us, a threat? Less than human?

My adoptive mother was quite vocal about the "fact" that blacks were "less than human." She felt that homosexuals were "sick." She didn't talk much about these views, however, because she was too preoccupied by her florid anti-Semitism. Sometimes you just have to wait for toxic generations to die out. Although that does seem a lot to ask of good people.