When the state of New York voted on same-sex “marriage” rights in December 2009, Democrats controlled the state Senate. And even then, the bill had no chance. It lost by 14 votes. Two weeks ago, with Republicans now controlling the New York Senate, the same legislation passed by a comfortable margin of 33-29.

On June 25, the New York Times printed a revealing piece about the stunning turnaround in the state legislature. It started with Andrew Cuomo, New York’s popular governor, who endorsed same-sex “marriage” just five years ago—several years after many of his political rivals had done so. But if Cuomo angered homosexual advocates for being slow to endorse gay “marriage,” he quickly won them over last year, when he made same-sex unions one of the central planks of his gubernatorial campaign.

Since becoming governor, Cuomo has faced intense pressure to follow through on his campaign promise—not just from the homosexual lobby, but his girlfriend also. She has no interest in marriage, personally. But she desperately wants a change in the marriage law—because of her openly gay brother.

So earlier this year, Cuomo went to work legalizing same-sex “marriage.” First, he mobilized same-sex “marriage” groups into one unified coalition. In the lead-up to the 2009 vote, these groups had been bitterly divided. Under Cuomo’s leadership, they merged together as “New Yorkers United for Marriage.”

Cuomo then recruited the wealthiest, most powerful Republican donors he could find—those who favored same-sex “marriage” legislation. One of them, a billionaire, had a homosexual son. These rich Republicans were needed to finance the gay “marriage” coalition—and to provide cover for Republican lawmakers willing to reverse their vote. These donors had the influence and the money, the Times wrote, to “insulate nervous senators from conservative backlash if they supported the marriage measure.”

Cuomo also took advantage of a leadership vacuum within the Republican ranks. They held a slim majority in the legislature, but without strong leadership at the top, stragglers were left in a vulnerable position.

Cuomo went right after Republicans who came from moderate districts, like James Alesi from Rochester. The homosexual lobby arranged for the super-rich Republican donors to assure Alesi that he would receive enthusiastic support for switching his vote.

“That’s not the kind of lily pad I normally hop on,” Mr. Alesi told the New York Times. But on June 13, he hopped on it anyway. After Cuomo introduced him to a group of homosexual “marriage” advocates as “the first Republican to support marriage equality,” Alesi proceeded to apologize for his 2009 position, saying it was politically motivated.

Another critical flip-flop came from Carl Kruger, a Democrat from Brooklyn, who alienated his party with the 2009 vote. Like Governor Cuomo, Kruger is not married—he lives with his girlfriend. According to the New York Times, ever since he cast his “no” vote a year and a half ago, Kruger had desperately wanted to reverse course because it was “tearing apart his household.” His girlfriend, the Times explained, had a homosexual nephew who was so upset by Kruger’s opposition to same-sex “marriage” that he cut off contact with both of them.

“I don’t need this,” Kruger told his colleagues in the legislature. His colleague helped to assure Kruger that he was right to change his vote, saying, “When everything else is gone, all you have left is family.”

Thus, in the upside-down world of today, it’s the fragmented remains of a broken institution—the traditional family—that are now rising in defense of homosexual “marriage”! It’s the billionaire “conservatives” who are buying political favors for their homosexual offspring. It’s the cohabiting divorcées, now occupying governors’ mansions, who are ramrodding the homosexual agenda through state legislatures. It’s the nagging girlfriends, those who have no interest in getting married themselves, who pull the puppet strings of decision-makers in order to secure equal “rights” for homosexual siblings. And it’s the homosexual children and relatives of those in positions of power who throw tantrums until they get what they want.

New York is now the sixth state in the Union to legalize homosexual “marriage,” joining Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Iowa. As the third-most populated state in America, the territorial reach of same-sex “marriage” rights effectively doubled on the night of June 24.

This landmark decision now sets the stage for a number of other contentious battles that are sure to erupt in other states.

“I think you’re going to see this message resonate all across the country now,” Governor Cuomo predicted, following New York’s historic vote. “If New York can do it, it’s okay for every other place to do it.”

Eighteen months ago, New York rejected the measure by a large majority. And today, homosexuals and liberal activists are celebrating yet another victory.

One popular liberal website even turned an iconic image of American heroism into a celebration of same-sex “marriage.” Instead of five soldiers raising the American flag at Iwo Jima, it posted a picture of four scantily clad homosexuals raising the rainbow flag, representing the diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

Not to be outdone, in the same edition that featured the story about the recent gay “marriage” vote, the New York Times printed a snapshot of a Broadway performance showing a group of half-naked homosexuals reenacting George Washington’s famous boat ride across the icy waters of the Delaware River.

“The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom,” the Prophet Isaiah wrote (Isaiah 3:9). Jesus said our day would be just as it was in the days of Noah, when they were “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” (Matthew 24:38). The problem wasn’t with the institution of marriage, as Herbert Armstrong explained in Mystery of the Ages. It was in the manner that they were marrying and giving in marriage!

We see these same evils multiplying greatly in our society today—and rapidly, as the recent overturn in New York plainly reveals.

The New York law also reveals a lot about the overall strategy of our adversary the devil. To think—barely a year and a half ago, state legislators in New York overwhelmingly voted against the prospect of legalizing homosexual marriage.

But in Satan’s mind, that resounding “no” only meant not now. And today, same-sex “marriage” is legal in New York. And since there are no residency restrictions within the law, homosexuals from anywhere in America can legally “marry” in the Empire State.

This perversion will continue only until Jesus Christ returns to this Earth to forcibly stop the madness by first removing Satan from the throne of this Earth (Luke 17:26). Then, after Christ marries His wife, the true Church, the God Family will establish and administer God’s loving government over all of mankind.

In the end, it is the Family of God that will turn this world—and, ultimately, the entire, vast, limitless universe—right side up!