Senator Ruben Diaz (Photo: RubenDiaz.com)
Earlier this week, State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. wrote a scathing, Spanish-language blog post criticizing unmarried couples including Mayor Bloomberg and Diana Taylor, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Sandra Lee, and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. According to Senator Diaz, all these unmarried couples are a bunch of unholy fornicators.
“I, for my part, don’t want to offend anyone, but the Bible, the word of God; calls it fornication to live as husband and wife without having made this union a wedding officially blessed by God and man,” Senator Diaz wrote in remarks translated from the original Spanish.
Senator Diaz aired his opinions on unmarried couples Monday on the website of the cable show “Ramón Aníbal TV.” He described living together as an unmarried couple as “living together in fornication.” His pro-marriage manifesto was inspired by an article that recently appeared in the Daily News about a poll showing fewer Americans are getting married than ever before. Senator Diaz blamed the problem on high-profile unmarried couples.
“These numbers scare me and I imagine that they’re going to rise, when in our society we have prominent leaders and high profile people living without getting married, sending an example to our children and community that it’s better to live together without marriage that it is to go and commit themselves in front of an altar,” wrote Senator Diaz.
According to Senator Diaz, two prominent New York politicians are among the unmarried fornicators setting a bad example for children–Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo.
“The unmarried couples that display themselves every day, everywhere are the Honorable Andrew Cuomo, Governor of the State of New York, who lives with Sandra Lee in the Governor’s Mansion, the Honorable Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of the City of New York, and his partner Diana Taylor, and Bratt Pitt [sic] and Angelina Jolie one of the most famous couples in the world and Hollywood artists who also live together without being married,” Senator Diaz wrote.
Senator Diaz entitled his essay on marriage “Lo Que Usted Debe Saber, por el Senador Rev. Ruben Diaz,” or “What You Should Know, by Senator Ruben Diaz.”
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Such simplistic statements do nothing but demonstrate Senator Diaz ignorance of the complex problems that are affecting our society. The rigidity of religous traditions and failure to understand why people have changed their view of marriage are more important issues to consider. Casting negative aspersions on specific groups of people that fashion their way in contrast to Senator Diaz’s own views only lessens his ability to negotiate his cause. There’s no place for such bigotry for elected officials.
Sen. Rev. Diaz is telling it like it is, not how the world WANTS to hear it. Society as we see it today is crumbling due to the deconstruction of true family values.
Sen. Rev. Diaz is telling it like it is, not how the world WANTS to hear it. Society as we see it today is crumbling due to the deconstruction of true family values.
As he stated at the beginning, it was God who said it in the Bible. The Bible clearly talks about prophets “telling it like it is” because God moved them to do so and suffering persecution for it. This, of course, didn’t stop God from sending judgement upon the sinner. It looks like history is about to repeat itself. We never learn.