Bad "Faith" Marriage Arguments

By David Benkof
DavidBenkof@aol.com
GaysDefendMarriage.com

When confronted about the real religious-freedom dangers posed by "marriage equality," proponents of same-sex marriage have frequently spouted a very specific kind of nonsense.

"Comments" sections all over the Web are full of examples, but people who should know better have made the same argument. For example, Democratic Pennsylvania Representative Daylin Leach said in a press release about same-sex marriage, "no church or synagogue will be forced to perform or recognize a marriage that goes against their beliefs." Religioustolerance.org promises that under marriage equality, "churches will continue to be able to discriminate, on any basis that they feel justified, against couples who seek a same-sex marriage or civil union."

Even California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George reassured people in his decision that "no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs."

How stupid do these people think we are?

No intelligent defender of the traditional definition of marriage is going around scaring people into believing that churches will be forced to marry same-sex couples. Anyone with even a tiny bit of knowledge of the freedom of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment knows such a move would be grossly unconstitutional. Even the Human Rights Campaign's top attorney, Lara Schwartz, told me "the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses would prevent the government from requiring a congregation to solemnize a marriage that did not meet with the congregation's requirements."

So why have the marriage-redefining legislators in Maryland and California named their bills the "Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act"? Even Illinois's civil unions bill is called the "Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act."

All these bills - plus the New York, Vermont, and Rhode Island same-sex marriage bills and the New Mexico domestic-partners bill - contain "religious freedom" provisions that prohibit nothing that isn't already clearly unconstitutional. Clearly, the religious-freedom language and the misleading titles of these bills are meant to fool people into thinking redefining marriage poses no threat to traditionally religious people.

Whereas the real dangers to the freedom of traditionally religious people if we redefine marriage are ignored. For example, HRC's Schwartz has repeatedly refused to say whether "marriage equality" means a traditionally religious public school teacher should fear being fired for telling her students that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. She also won't say whether a business owner should be able to use G-d's definition of marriage instead of the gay community's definition in deciding who gets a "marital discount."

If the other side can get away with this "bad faith" approach, I propose we rename the California Marriage Protection Act the "California Wedding Diversity and Marriage Protection Act." We can add a line about how no person's wedding will be prevented, postponed, canceled, or shut down by the government on the basis of the number and gender of the celebrants. Then, when gay-marriage defenders accuse us of trying to discriminate on the basis of gender in who can marry, we can say "Under this act, no person's wedding is ever in danger. People will have the right to have wedding ceremonies for people in any combination they desire." Who cares that no gay-marriage advocate has been warning that the act would ban gay weddings, and that such a ban would be unconstitutional? What matters is scoring rhetorical points, right?

Labels: Marriage

posted by David Benkof at 12:59 AM | link

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