Obama Sends Letter Congratulating Married Gay Couple
A married gay couple from New York received a congratulatory letter from President Obama over the weekend.
Matt Katz and his husband, Aaron Lafrenz, married in July, were one of the first gay couples to wed on the day same-sex marriage was legalized in New York.
Katz told BuzzFeed he was bewildered by the letter he received over the weekend.
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"I'm not sure why the letter got sent to us. Aaron and I were married on July 24th at Borough Hall," said Katz. "However, we had our wedding ceremony on July 23rd at my Dad's house the day before. Maybe word got out that we were outlaws for a day?"
In late June, New York became the sixth state to legalize gay marriage, passing the bill by a 33-29 margin. A poll released on June 21 by QEV Analytics, three days before the bill was passed, showed 57 percent of New York voters were opposed to gay marriage.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who aggressively pushed for the bill’s passage, quickly signed it into law.
Cuomo claimed in a statement that the definition of marriage was a social justice issue, despite Christian groups highlighting that marriage is defined by the Bible, and should not be redefined by the state. Cuomo claimed: "This state, when it's at its finest, is a beacon for social justice. We reached a new level of social justice this evening."
Although President Obama has said publicly that he is opposed to gay marriage and prefers civil unions for homosexual couples, he has recently been quoted as saying his views on gay marriage continue to "evolve," and he's "working on" his views about the issue.
After the law was passed in June, Pastor Art Kohl of Faith Bible Baptist Church gave a sermon expressing his disappointment.
"Our God has been offended ... that a lifestyle has had a stamp of approval put on it by our government in Albany that really is an extremely dangerous lifestyle,” Kohl told his congregation.
“What has happened in Albany this week ... was not only an affront to me but it was also an affront to a holy God," Kohl continued.
"It was a cold, hard slap [in] God's face by the assembly men and women in Albany who voted for it and the senators," he stated plainly. "They spit in the very face of a holy God who alone can define what marriage is."
Kohl reminded those who refuted his biblical stance on the issue that Christians are not hateful.
“It seems we hate and we get angry at certain sins and love and coddle and pet other sins and befriend them if we're not careful," Kohl said upon opening his sermon. “We ought not to hate the sinner but we ought to hate the sin.”
Obama is also opposed to the Defense of Marriage Act and reversed the U.S. military’s "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals earlier this year.
