Paterson's liberal agenda surfaces

Ed Thomas - OneNewsNow - 6/3/2008 9:00:00 AMvar addthis_pub = 'onenewsnow';

New York Governor David Paterson announced last week that state agencies will recognize same-sex "marriages" from states and countries where they are legal. That has confirmed what pro-family and traditional marriage advocates – as well as political conservatives – were waiting to find out: if a liberal agenda would surface from Paterson's administration before the end of the state legislative session.

Jason McGuire of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom, a Christian legal liberties and legislative lobby group, says most state residents are familiar with Paterson's liberal advocacy record from his days as a legislator and lieutenant governor, but had not seen an aggressive move to advance any of that agenda since he took over from disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer in March.
 
They did suspect, however, that a hint of something would appear before the end of the legislative session – and it did as the last week of the session approached. "We've been waiting to see what will be the agenda that the governor is looking to advance ... and it looks like the homosexual agenda is what he's looking to move," McGuire contends.
 
McGuire hopes this will alert people to the importance of having a Defense of Marriage act. "We need to have that here in New York State. Unfortunately, there has not been as much emphasis on that as there should be, and this ought to give us the inclination to say that we need this, and we need it now. There's no longer any time to delay," McGuire adds.
 
Conservatives see Paterson as using his acquisition of the state's executive office to be the third part of a three-pronged attack front – including the legislature and the courts – designed to advance the causes of same-sex marriage and abortion rights. Both issues were seen as having been hand-in-hand and heavily supported by Spitzer and Paterson in the previous administration.
 
"Now we're seeing that [it is] being applied to the executive branch as well. What has not been able to be gained legislatively, the advocates of same-sex marriage are trying to ram through judicially, and now through executive order," McGuire explains.
 
For the immediate future, more than one religious and conservative organization in New York has suggested possible legal, injunctive action against Paterson's executive directive, even as Alliance Defense Fund and other legal firms push for an appeal of several recent state court rulings in favor of foreign same-sex marriage recognition for job benefits purposes, that laid the groundwork for Paterson's claim that New York's laws do not prevent it.