Republican Senator: 'F**k It,' Gays Should Marry
6/17/2011 11:24 AM PDT by TMZ Staff

Republican New York State Senator Roy McDonald has SHATTERED party lines in support of gay marriage -- telling reporters, "F**k it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing."

The battle rages on in New York to legalize gay marriage -- but McDonald threw his hat in the ring earlier this week ... with the greatest statement of all time, claiming, "You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing."

"You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, f**k it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing."

"I'm tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this."

With McDonald's support, the gay marriage bill is only ONE vote shy of being made into law -- which would make New York the sixth state to legalize gay marriage.

Now, I was just impressed with this guy's courage. He realizes, we have got to compromise. Both sides. And, I'm reading into his decision when I add this: I think he also sees that this issue pits religious teaching on one side against inalienable rights on the other. Yup, I said that...me, who believes that all of us who are married need to be legally bound by civil unions, and that marriage needs to be a religious rite that can then be defined as between a man and a woman.

So, I am against marriage defined any other way. That comes from knowing that marriage is a holy sacrament that was eventually co-opted by the legal system because then there was no other kind and it was easy to codify the religious. But really, that breeches the wall of separation. Civil union would correct that. Apply it to everyone, gay and straight.

So, I probably should be against states voting to allow gay marriage, like New York. And I should be against what McDonald's decision. But, I'm not, because no one is changing marriage laws to civil union laws, and this is a basic issue of your inalienable rights. Think of it this way: the issue of *choice* over one's sexuality just obfuscates the real thing, which is that no man can be free unless he has free will. How does that work in protestant Christianity and not here? My beliefs about marriage are in part a compromise because I realize how important and sacred this act, this label, this name, means to religious Americans.

And, I also like to call them like I see them. Regardless how any of us feel about gay marriage, this Roy McDonald deserves 15 seconds of kudos because he stood up and voted his conscience -- a mixture of religious and secular. He dared to compromise. I say, bravo to that.

Look, in my spare time when I read, I have been lost deep in the 18th century for the last few months. I have absorbed everything I can find written from that period and about it. And what I come away with is pretty scary. So many parallels in the people's attitudes and fierce partisanships then compared to now. So many lost opportunities to have compromised a solution to the Civil War and disunion, when we came within a hair's width of losing it all in mutual destruction. It is quite romantic and idealistic to conclude that some things are just gonna go that way, or to propose that nothing could have stopped it. Read the details and you know that is not true.

Earlier in the month, when I wrote about the somber mood of Americans, increasingly I wonder if it is because many of us are beginning to see finally that we are in virgin territory. Nothing in our history has been quite like what we are going through now. That is pretty scary, too. And couple that with (my belief, anyway) the realization of more and more people that Obama is in over his head, and that makes it scarier still. (Either because of the virgin territory or because of his remedies, take your pick...even if you still insist on believing it to be Bush's fault...the end result is still a bummer). And then, it is getting hot with summer setting in. It's just one big snotball of fun (not), as a friend of mine used to say.

I don't know, but to me it is shaping up to be a somber summer. I wonder if the 10th anniversary of 911 coming up might can unite us any or at least help the word compromise be more palatable.