He doesn’t seem to know it, but Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York is actually expressing public support for the basic values and arguments in support of same-sex marriage. In a blog entry entry entitled The True Meaning of Marriage, here’s what Dolan wrote just the other day:

“Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America – not in China or North Korea.  In those countries, government presumes daily to “redefine” rights, relationships, values, and natural law.  There, communiqués from the government can dictate the size of families, who lives and who dies, and what the very definition of “family” and “marriage” means.”

His point seems straightforward and simple enough — governments have little business involving themselves in defining or limiting the most basic and fundamental of human relationships. Isn’t this what the supporters of same-sex marriage are seeking to do, namely to have existing state laws updated to reflect this “less government intrusion in the lives of individuals” approach?

Except in those situations where there is potential harm to individual or to society (as in the case of children, or close relatives, or those already married), what interest does government have in placing limitations on which two adults — male, female, gay, straight, young, old, black, white, citizen, non-citizen, etc. — may or may not enter into that most fundamental of human relationships in which spouses commit to one another to share their lives, their resources, and their very selves?

Archbishop Dolan, I’m with you!  Those government communiqués dictating limits on fundamental human rights need to stop. How best to do this?  By telling the government it can’t limit these rights and by supporting marriage equality for all in New York State!