I honestly have no idea what Dreher is asking for here:
It is increasingly obvious that the US Supreme Court is going to have to rule on this matter soon. It is an untenable situation for a same-sex couple to be married in Vermont and Massachusetts and Iowa, but not in Texas, Nevada and Montana. I believe SCOTUS will constitutionalize gay marriage, and that being the case, it might be better for my side if it gets done sooner rather than later. If done sooner, there might still be enough backlash left in the American people to get a constitutional amendment passed erecting a high barrier or protection around religious institutions. Thoughts?
What on earth is he talking about in regards to an additional amendment protecting religious institutions? Isn’t the 1st amendment still operative? Does he mean things like the “institution of marriage” and not religious institutions like the church itself? And if the SCOTUS makes gay marriage constitutional, what would an amendment do anyway?
And I am not trying to be snarky, but what is he talking about? Am I just not understanding the new codespeak for the religious right?
Svensker
I think a number of Christians (and maybe other religious folks, I don’t know) are afraid that if it becomes legal for gays to wed, then it may eventually become ILLEGAL for churches to refuse to marry them.
Steve
I imagine he means that we can pass an amendment to protect churches from being forced to marry gays or whatnot. But yeah, maybe he does mean the "institution" of marriage.
By the way, people can get as agitated as they want for the Supreme Court to step in, but as a historical matter it’s worth noting that interracial marriage was legal in something like 34 states (either officially or de facto) before Loving v. Virginia was handed down.
Tedlicious
Dreher acts like federalism is untenable. How else to take his statement?
Dave
He’s worried that churches will be forced to perform marriage ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples.
The problem here is that the government is issuing marriage licenses and that is running headlong into religious institutions performing marriages.
The State should issue civil union licenses only, and if people want a marriage, they can get one at a church and then use that appellation, although it would hold no legal status. The legal binding document would be for a civil union.
Michael D.
Rod Dreher – Nice enough guy, but he is socially blind.
srv
In Soviet America, your religious institutions and values are so weak they need protection by the government.
NonyNony
@Svensker:
This is mostly because a number of Christian churches have been spreading propaganda to that effect to intentionally put fear of such a thing into the hearts of their congregants.
Such a thing is, of course, not possible in the USA barring a Constitutional amendment. No one can force churches to marry anyone – if they could, divorcees couldn’t be barred from Catholic marriage ceremonies.
I think John’s right about it meaning the "religious institution of marriage" in this case, though. Dreher’s stupid, but he’s not that stupid that he thinks you’d need a new Constitutional amendment to protect the first amendment. He’s talking about a Constitutional amendment to enshrine DOMA into the Constitution quasi-permanently (he might THINK he’s talking about permanently, but it would be about as permanent as Prohibition was.)
anonymo
That’s the sound of his head exploding. In one sentence he says that Vermont is better than "hav[ing] it imposed on unwilling polities by the judiciary" – and in the next says the Supreme Court is going to "have to rule" on the subject (the idea that they’ll constitutionalize gay marriage is just defeatism on his part). Contradiction much?
ed
Um, go fuck yourself, Rod is about the only thing I can think of at the moment.
ed
The State should issue civil union licenses only, and if people want a marriage, they can get one at a church and then use that appellation, although it would hold no legal status. The legal binding document would be for a civil union.
Painfully obvious, this is. Really doesn’t seem difficult.
Cris
For that matter:
Is it actually untenable? Aren’t there still some things that are legal in some states but not others, and isn’t that permissible under the Constitution?
For instance, if you have a medical marijuana prescription in California, you can’t expect that to be honored in North Dakota, even if federal law wasn’t complicating matters.
I recognize that it’s impractical, and it imposes an undue burden on people whose marriages aren’t recognized in every state, but is there actually a Constitutional problem?
Shygetz
If that’s true, then Dreher is stupid. Can I (as a non-Catholic) successfully sue the Catholic Church to make them marry me? Of course not; the Catholic Church has the right to marry whom they please. Same is true of all churches. So why would they be forced to marry homosexuals? Even if/whern sexuality is universally recognized as a "protected class", religious minorities share the same status and yet we cannot and do not force churches to marry anyone. Dreher is either paranoid or is referring to protection of the "institution" of marriage.
MikeJ
Does any state anywhere require Catholic churches to perform weddings for divorced people?
Phoenician in a time of Romans
I think a number of Christians (and maybe other religious folks, I don’t know) are afraid that if it becomes legal for gays to wed, then it may eventually become ILLEGAL for churches to refuse to marry them.
Because, you know, there’s a huge number of Christian churches being sued by Satanists when they refuse to hold their marriage ceremonies, complete with blood sacrifices…
Of course, they might also be worried that they might get sued for refusing to allow their public facilities to be used by Teh Queer as well. Think of it in terms of Southerners worrying about "religious protection" from interracial marriages, in light of their deep concern about miscegenation.
NonyNony
@Dave:
This is, BTW, ALREADY HOW THE LAW WORKS. A civil marriage is all that the state can grant – a state can’t do ANYTHING about religious marriages. In our system the state agrees to acknowledge certain religious officiants as being eligible to sign the civil marriage license and have it be legally binding. But that’s just like granting the ability to do auto title registration to a private title company (as many states do).
Comrade Dread
If the court decides that DOMA is unconstitutional, then gay couples married in one state could sue for recognition in another and the courts could force that state to recognize the marriage.
Dreher is saying that in that eventuality, it might provoke enough populist rage to get a constitutional marriage to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Given the economy and demographics on this issue, I don’t see this happening, and even though I’m not for gay marriage, I don’t see this as necessary. (There are times when you have to accept that, for whatever reason, you’ve lost the battle and move on.)
Aside from that, I think Dreher, like a lot of people, are concerned that the gay marriage issue is going to lead to government crack downs on religious organizations that oppose it, more PC laws that would infringe on free speech rights; ministers, photographers, musicians and others who refuse to perform at gay weddings for moral reasons being sued, etc.
I think it’s possible that will be the case, but again, I don’t see a Constitutional marriage amendment as being particularly helpful against stuff like that when you already have a perfectly good 1st amendment that you could use to sue for your rights with.
But then again, the GOP doesn’t have much faith in the US court system unless it’s prosecuting young minorities.
amorphous
Well, it would specifically and explicitly reverse the Constitutionality of said hypothetical ruling. Think along the lines of Dred Scott and such.
Mnemosyne
Actually, that’s what every state does right now. The state issues you the license if you meet certain legal requirements (like not being married to anyone else at the moment) and then you choose how to solemnize it. There is absolutely NO — zero — requirement that anyone be married in a church. None. You can be married by a judge. You can have the county clerk marry you on the spot. In California, you can have a friend sworn in as Deputy Commissioner for A Day and s/he can do a completely secular wedding. Or you can go whole-hog and have 300 people come watch you get married in a Roman Catholic cathedral …
… assuming, of course, you meet all of the requirements that the Roman Catholic Church puts on marriage. Not just anyone can walk into a Catholic church and demand that the priest marry them. People are turned away all the time.
Which is what makes the whining by Dreher and his ilk even stupider. If the government can’t legally force the Roman Catholic Church to let two heterosexual divorced people get married, what makes them think there would be any legal standing at all for a gay couple to sue?
TenguPhule
Gay sex will only be authorized between priests and boys.
Also, we will build a fort around our churches to prevent the inevitable torch bearing mob from invading.
/Dreher
Linda
I agree, he is afraid that his church and others like it will be forced to marry gay couples. He completely ignores the fact that Catholic churches are not forced to marry couples if one or both of them have been divorced. Christian churches are not forced to perform Buddhist marriage ceremonies. Heck, as far as I know, Catholic churches still require that if one of the participants in a marriage is not Catholic, then they have to agree that any child born of the marriage will be raised in the Catholic religion if they want the ceremony to be held in the church. It is truly a straw man argument, but it is pretty prevalent among Christians opposed to gay marriage.
jake 4 that 1
His side being the whiny wobble bottoms who are a-scared of the ghey marriage.
Later on the American people will be exhausted from mandatory orgy attendance – Oops, said too much!
jl
My thoughts are that Dreher is insane or drumming up convenient misconceptions to invigorate the DOMA base.
I agree with commenters above who advocate that the government only issue civil unions needed to regulate rights and obligations relevant to the legal aspects of domestic partnerships. You want to get "married", go find a church, and said church can deal with the holiness stuff.
ryan
The State should issue civil union licenses only, and if people want a marriage, they can get one at a church and then use that appellation, although it would hold no legal status. The legal binding document would be for a civil union.
I used to be for this notion, but lately? Fuck that (with all due respect). I’m a gay atheist, in an almost seven year relationship, and goddammit I want to get "married" some day. My parents are married, his parents are married, and they don’t go to church at all. And that’s what I want, too. Why are we considering giving up the "marriage" title to churches because of a bunch of religious right nutjobs with a persecution complex?
BDeevDad
This was one of the prop 8 talking points. We had to explain that this was not true to a friend of my wife.
TenguPhule
This makes sense only if you’re fucking retarded and deliberately obtuse.
Brandon T.
Dreher may be a Jesusophile, but he’s generally pretty rational.
He’s not worried churches will be forced to perform marriage ceremonies for gays. He KNOWS that if gay marriage is legalized, social norms (even among the religious) will eventually adjust and more and more churches will OFFER to marry gays. What he has in mind is some sort of rearguard excuse that will enable christians to exclude homosexuals long after all popular moral disapproval of them has disappeared.
Mnemosyne
@Cris:
Yes. Loving v Virginia. The Lovings were married in Washington DC where interracial marriage was legal and then returned to Virginia, where they were arrested.
Anphang
I think it’s also worth doing, if you haven’t already, to read Andrew Sullivan’s take on the meta-debate, "Vermont And Rod’s Giant Sigh". In other words, I’m fairly certain that Dreher is merely the first of what are going to be many disbelieving attempts at continuing what they insist will be the protection of marriage – it’s just they’ve been temporarily stunned into passive-aggression.
I’m going to state the obvious, and believe that we’ve reached a watershed for a more mature, adult discourse on the pros and cons of gay marriage. The social conservatives don’t have the judicial activism red herring to rely on any more. Of course, I’m not going to wager bets on "more mature, adult" = a better discourse – it is only mature adults, I’ve noticed, that can have an argument about one thing while actually fighting about something else entirely. Neither are children particular known for publishing memos on the best non-obscene, single-word attacks to use against your opponents.
Jaquandor
Basically, he’s conceding that time is not on the side of those against gay marriage; acceptance of gay marriage is only increasing every year, so if there’s ever going to be any kind of definitive blocking of it, it has to be now. Which is why he’s hoping for something of a much greater magnitude than just a state here, a state there, gradually legalizing gay marriage across the country; he’s suggesting that a SCOTUS ruling in favor of gay marriage would galvanize the anti-gay people in the country to the point where they might be able to get a Constitutional amendment passed defining marriage as a man and a woman. Remember, the SCOTUS only says what’s Constitutional based on what’s actually in the Constitution at the time of the ruling, which is why an amendment banning abortion and an amendment banning flag burning are such popular notions.
Dreher knows that if this current course goes on another ten years or so, there’s no chance whatsoever that an amendment could pass. So basically, he’s saying that it’s now or never.
(I find Dreher unimaginably loathsome.)
aimai
I don’t think that what Dreher et al are referring to is the realistic fear that individual churches will be forced to perform gay marriages. I think this post is meant to refer to the generic and almost ambient fear that Churches and pastors will not be permitted to preach against the gays and that there will be no "conscience clause" that allows bigoted public servants to refuse to sign documents (from adoption papers to marriage lisences.)
I say that not because they can’t *also* be utterly and absurdly and erroneously wrong on the "we’ll have to marry those people at our own altars" thing. But because they have been spreading the rumor that the Pastors, and the Bible itself, will be "banned" as a form of "hate speech." That was absolutely one of the biggest rumors going the rounds in California among the Prop 8 people.
In addition if you read far right wing christianist blogs they are convinced not only that gay marriage is an absolute evil but that it is the thin end of the wedge for a kind of anti-family agenda. They refer constantly to Germany’s supposed laws "criminalizing homeschooling" (I believe Germany does have such a law, presumably because parents aren’t permitted to deny their children’s rights to basic education). Gay marriage and all kinds of children’s/teens sexual, educational, and medical rights initiatives are all seen as a huge threat to the ability of Christian families to withdraw from a dangerous social world and replicate themselves. That’s partly why they are so opposed to public schools. Not just because there are so many perceived "bad influences" (language, drinking, smoking, dating) but because the teen cohort replaces the parents as the ultimate arbiter of what is right. So gay/straight alliances are bad not just because they (supposedly) are a way that gays recruit into their evil cults but also simply another way in which religious principles of family autonomy, autarky, and authority are undermined by individualism.
All of that is rolled into the legalization or decriminalization of gay marriage not just because teh ghey is thought to be so bad but because it brings each and every good christian family into potential conflict with the rampant individualism that supposedly underlies gay families. Its not that they think they will see them at church but that they will see them in businesses, stores, streets, gov. buildings, schools, and etc… and they wont be able (as they see it) to shout "vade in retro satanas" spit, and walk away.
aimai
MikeJ
OT: Teddy K on the Ed Show throwing out the first pitch for the mighty Sox.
aimai
Hey, why am in in moderation?
I don’t think that what Dreher et al are referring to is the realistic fear that individual churches will be forced to perform gay marriages. I think this post is meant to refer to the generic and almost ambient fear that Churches and pastors will not be permitted to preach against the gays and that there will be no "conscience clause" that allows bigoted public servants to refuse to sign documents (from adoption papers to marriage lisences.)
I say that not because they can’t also be utterly and absurdly and erroneously wrong on the "we’ll have to marry those people at our own altars" thing. But because they have been spreading the rumor that the Pastors, and the Bible itself, will be "banned" as a form of "hate speech." That was absolutely one of the biggest rumors going the rounds in California among the Prop 8 people.
In addition if you read far right wing christianist blogs they are convinced not only that gay marriage is an absolute evil but that it is the thin end of the wedge for a kind of anti-family agenda. They refer constantly to Germany’s supposed laws "criminalizing homeschooling" (I believe Germany does have such a law, presumably because parents aren’t permitted to deny their children’s rights to basic education). Gay marriage and all kinds of children’s/teens sexual, educational, and medical rights initiatives are all seen as a huge threat to the ability of Christian families to withdraw from a dangerous social world and replicate themselves. That’s partly why they are so opposed to public schools. Not just because there are so many perceived "bad influences" (language, drinking, smoking, dating) but because the teen cohort replaces the parents as the ultimate arbiter of what is right. So gay/straight alliances are bad not just because they (supposedly) are a way that gays recruit into their evil cults but also simply another way in which religious principles of family autonomy, autarky, and authority are undermined by individualism.
All of that is rolled into the legalization or decriminalization of gay marriage not just because teh ghey is thought to be so bad but because it brings each and every good christian family into potential conflict with the rampant individualism that supposedly underlies gay families. Its not that they think they will see them at church but that they will see them in businesses, stores, streets, gov. buildings, schools, and etc… and they wont be able (as they see it) to shout "vade in retro satanas" spit, and walk away.
aimai
filmgeek83
Well, in short, an amendment would make gay marriage unconstitutional. If the congress could get pass the extremely high bar to amend the Constitution (highly unlikely) defining marriage as between a man and a woman, the Supreme Court would have to abide by it.
That’s why so many states amended their own constitutions to read that way. It effectively took the matter out of the court’s hands.
Comrade Dread
Because if a court sees a refusal to marry a gay couple as a civil rights issue instead of a religious issue, then it’s not completely out there to think that a court could order a church to officiate a ceremony between a gay couple, or to be held civilly liable for refusing to do so.
BDeevDad
I posted this in an earlier thread, but it seems like the perfect response to Dreher.
wasabi gasp
It means he’s holding four Christmas cards and a Easter card and he wants to go all in.
cokane
amendments are the only way to make unconstitutional laws constitutional
Cris
@Mnemosyne: So re:Loving, the objection would be Equal Protection under Amendment 14. Okay, I can see that.
jl
@17 Mnemosyne:
That is my understanding too, except that these state governments call it marriage. Am I right? So we just need to change the word for the civil procedure, and make it clear that for religious purposes, churches can do their thing and impose whatever silly and arbitrary discriminatory rules they want for their version of holy matrimony.
Of course, if the real issue is that they do not want any legal rights for non-heterosexual domestic partnerships, then they will have to say right up front that they are bigots. So, the proposal to rectify the terminology will reduce the number who are willing to ally with the worst bigots, and flush out the true nature of the worst bigots at the same time.
gbear
OT, but an interesting listen:
Mara Liasson got a full dose of wingnuttia in a story that ran on NPR this evening called Gun Shop Owner Links Ammo Shortage To Obama. You can imagine what it’s about. You could almost feel Mara coming to the realization that she is one of the ‘others’ that these people are arming up against. Her beltway facade almost cracked enough for her to ‘get it’. Welcome to the stupid, paranoid world that we live in, NPR.
jl
@35 BDeevDad:
Hurry up, next generation! We need you.
Violet
I think he’s dog whistling that not only will churches be forced to perform marriage ceremonies for gays and lesbians, they’ll also be required by law to perform marriages of an adult to a child, a woman to three men, or a man to a goat. For some absolutely bizarre reason, the discussion of same sex marriage seems to lead to churches (and yes, it’s always churches) being forced to marry any creature that walks in the door.
By "protecting religious institutions" he means he wants them to only be required to perform marriage services for people they deem acceptable. This is pretty much how it is right now, but by dropping a fear bomb, he creates a worry cloud of "OMG! We’ll have to perform marriages of dogs to cats! We must save teh churches!"
These people come up with the strangest stuff to worry about.
Comrade Dread
@jl
It won’t work. I’m more of a libertarian and I kept throwing this solution out to liberals and conservatives and neither of them were okay with it.
Most Cons were still unhappy with the state recognizing gay relationships in any way, and most Liberals thought that doing this would just be sour grapes.
mcc
That is completely out there. Why is declining a service to a gay couple any more or less of a civil rights issue than declining a service to a Muslim couple?
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
Except, of course, for that pesky First Amendment, which says that the church can discriminate all day long when it comes to church matters and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.
If a priest or minister refuses to marry you because you and your future spouse are different races, guess what? You’re SOL, even though you have the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to back you up.
Seriously, we need to kill this meme dead because there is ZERO TRUTH behind it. None.
Trollhattan
Evidently not, Rod.
Time to go support the Texas Board of EdYouKaShun’s creationism in the classroom policy, or something useful like that there.
demkat620
What the hell does that mean?
torrentprime
It’s not just the churches performing marriages thing, everyone. It’s this:
He/they actually believe that once gays can get married, we will…well, you can read the tinfoil for yourself. They need to preach against our civil rights so badly, at work no less, that they won’t be able to contain themselves, and therefore all Christiandom will be threatened by anti-discrimination lawsuits. He wants that "barrier" from SCOTUS to be free to preach and, more importantly, to discriminate against gays in the workplace, especially in Christian-run workplaces (ie, anywhere). Essentially, a get-out-of-discrimination-law-free card for the right.
And they wonder why gays grow to hate organized religion.
Sloegin
Dreher is purposefully conflating a binding legal agreement issued by the state with a ceremony performed by religious institutions.
He’s doing this to scare the proles. His whole purpose is obfuscation.
MikeJ
Me fail english? That’s unpossible!
edited for clarity: Dreher obviously has problems with the language, not the commenter who couldn’t understand Rod’s word salad.
Jon H
@Dave: "The problem here is that the government is issuing marriage licenses and that is running headlong into religious institutions performing marriages."
Churches dictate who they’ll marry all the time. It isn’t a problem.
aimai
Hey, I’m stuck in moderation. And I’m immoderate.
aimai
Comrade Dread
@mcc
Here’s the flip side to your analogy: Why is declining a service to a gay couple any less of a civil rights issue than declining a service to a black couple or an interracial couple?
That would be the argument set forth by a couple suing to be married in the church of their choice. And if you agree that homosexuality is primarily derived from nature and genetics, then it is difficult to construct an argument as to why a religious institution should be able to decline a gay couple, but not an interracial couple, in so far as they are both otherwise qualified to be married in that institution.
Scott H
Churches refuse to marry people every day of the week, and they couldn’t possibly be compelled to do so. Everything else is hokum.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Why bother? We have a perfectly good system in place to have partnerships recognized by the state. I see absolutely nothing that could be gained by issuing "Civil Union Licenses" instead of "Marriage Licenses."
Every marriage in this country is a civil union. Marriage is a civil institution that has many legal issues bound up in it like custody, inheritance, etc. They can put whatever pretty tinsel on it that they like, but until they start refusing to get marriage licenses for their church weddings because the state shouldn’t be involved in a spiritual matter like marriage, they’re nothing but hypocrites, trying to prevent some people from getting the same legal rights that they enjoy.
BruceJ
Dave says:
This is perfectly well handled today and is a disingenous objection. I cannot go to my local temple and demand that the rabbi marry me and my finace if we’re not Jewish.
Moreover civil authorities perform marriages as well; we were married in a perfectly lovely atheist ceremony by a JP.
More to the profane point for the fundies: Fuck them, fuck them and the sacred cows they rode in on.
Religious fanatics don’t get to claim ‘marriage’ as their own.
guster
This is why Baptist churches are legally obligated to officiate at Jewish weddings. You should see the hupas!
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
Why is it more of a civil rights issue since the interracial or black couple can’t sue, either?
El Cid
It is totally not fair and unconstitutional that my particular religious viewpoint isn’t enforced nationwide upon a group I view as an unimportant minority of deviants I occasionally deign to tolerate.
Library Grape
Two words: Richard Poplawski. Now that’s some serious backlash.
Maybe the high barrier protecting religious institutions is a 15-ft wall surrounding San Francisco?
Xenos
@jl: Unfortunately, the federal law uses the term "marriage". So if you cede that word to the religionists you are capitulating, unless you also manage to rewrite hundreds of sections of the federal code.
And the injustice of it pisses me off incredibly. My pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors had legal marriage for hundreds of years before converting to Christianity. Once they converted, Kings and noblemen who could afford the luxury and needing the religious sanction went in for the sacrament of marriage. Until the late 19th century 90% of the population did not bother with the sacrament of marriage – unless you were Catholic or Greek Orthodox it was a bourgeois affectation.
And now churches, including Methodists and Baptists, movements that went to war in order, inter alia, to demand that the only sacraments are baptism and holy communion, somehow should own the term "marriage"? It drives me fucking crazy that this is even an issue for discussion!
Comrade Dread
Then put this assertion down and cite a court decision or precedent on this issue, please.
Dennis-SGMM
As long as Dreher is shooting for the sky he ought to be advancing the notion that once you get your driver’s license you should have to get the church’s blessing before you can drive your car. It makes about as much sense as his current line of crap.
Library Grape
@Cris:
Yes, it’s called the full faith and credit clause, which requires, among other things, each state to recognize the marriages of other states. Supporters of DOMA claim that this isn’t an issue but they’re wrong on the facts and precedent.
Library Grape
@Comrade Dread:
This is the kind of tinfoil hat stuff I just can’t comprehend. There is simply and absolutely not a shred of evidence to support these paranoid delusions.
John Cole
@gbear: The gun nuts have been going ape about ammunition for a couple weeks. Apparently the military stopped selling them used shell casings and that caused a fit a couple weeks back.
I am so uninterested in guns.
Xanthippas
Yes, that’s it exactly. I’ve seen as much on right-wing blogs, and Dreher is just dressing it up a little bit when he says "If done sooner, there might still be enough backlash left in the American people to get a constitutional amendment passed erecting a high barrier or protection around religious institutions.."
It’s one thing to be afraid of gay marriage, but the idea that churches will be forced to marry gay couples is so ridiculous that only a right-winger could possibly believe it. As to "constitutionalizing" gay marriage, I think other commentators here are right that what he means is that either SCOTUS will strike down the anti-"full faith and credit" provisions of DOMA, or maybe even that the Court would go so far as to strike down anti-gay marriage state laws as violating due process or something.
But seriously, how can he think that’s going to happen anytime soon? People like Dreher have been frothing about "judicial activism" for decades now, and have agitated to stack the Court with social conservatives who won’t touch social issues like gay marriage with a ten foot pole. So what, he’s having buyer’s remorse now? If you take his argument seriously, then it sounds like if he had a choice he’d go back in time stack the Court with liberal judges so they could then "constitutionalize" gay marriage, so that anti-gay marriage activists could then get an amendment banning it nationwide. That plan’s so crazy, how can it NOT work, right?
And yes, it’s obvious that what Dreher is really afraid of is the increasing acceptance that gay marriage is gaining nationwide. So he’d have this crazy scheme to buy what, twenty more years until America then turns around and passes an amendment that undoes the earlier amendment banning gay marriage?
And further, this is why you can’t take conservatives seriously when they start blathering about "federalism" and "states’ rights." That’s all well and good until states start doing obviously wrong things like letting gays get married, and then it’s Constitutional amendment time bitches.
glasgowtremontaine
@Dave:
Uh, switching out marriage for civil unions would inconvenience, at the least, couples who need their legal binding document to be recognized outside the US. Unless you’re planning to redefine marriage via the UN.
Comrade Dread
The photographer case happened and she lost. So, again, it’s not complete lunacy.
Ecks
Then with all due respect, fuck you.
I’m very much straight, engaged, and someone who happens not to believe in God. I’m also someone who grew up steeped my whole life in a culture that invests marriage as the ultimate commitment that a couple can make that bonds their life together. Marriage is about love, and if some people want to see God as love, then that’s their choice, but I have no obligation to. If you want to hand ownership of marriage over to religious groups so that now I have to beg to let me engage with my own cultural practices, then fuck. you.
In fact, *all* cultures have some version of marriage, and it’s only bound up with religion in some of them… Come to that, marriage started off as secular in western society, and only migrated over to commonly being a church function in the last few hundred years. So no, religious groups do not own marriage, much as they would like to. It belongs to all of us.
Zandar
@Library Grape:
Win.
Message Ends.
joes527
@ryan:
Don’t like ministers? Find a bartender.
The side-that-makes-irrational-arguments has made this about the word "marriage" In the perfect world I’d like to follow the philosopher when he says "Can’t we all just get along?" But if the word is the only thing between war and peace (or at least between war and capitulation of the side-that-makes-irrational-arguments), then I say screw the word. (the beauty of civil-unions-for-everyone is that you STILL get as much access to the word as anyone else)
Barry
John: "What on earth is he talking about in regards to an additional amendment protecting religious institutions? "
Dreher is a dishonest wh*reson. Which applies to pretty much everything that he says.
"Isn’t the 1st amendment still operative? "
Yes, but Dreher is deliberately trying to deceive people. Because Dreher is a dishonest wh*reson.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
I’d love to, except that no one has managed to successfully or even unsuccessfully file suit against a church for not performing their wedding. It doesn’t exist. It’s a phantom in your mind.
If you’re going to worry about imaginary things, why not worry that Bengal tigers are going to start roaming your neighborhood? It’s exactly as likely as a gay couple successfully suing a church that won’t marry them. Depending on how close you live to a zoo, it may be even more likely.
gbear
@John Cole:
I’m not interested in guns either, but after reading about the guy in PA, that gun show in KY and then this NPR story, I’m kind of concerned about the safety of people who work for the government (I being one (who occasionally has to drive out into the sticks in his government-identified car)), or the dreaded ‘others’ who just happen to wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s a level of paranoia now that didn’t exist when their guys were in charge. I wouldn’t want to be a rural cop right now.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
Link needed.
joes527
@Ecks:
Why is it the governments role to resolve issues from your childhood?
No one is suggesting that we "hand ownership of marriage over to religious groups." What is being suggested is that marriage gets cut loose to be used by anyone who wants to use it.
Jon H
@Comrade Dread: "Here’s the flip side to your analogy: Why is declining a service to a gay couple any less of a civil rights issue than declining a service to a black couple or an interracial couple?"
In terms of mainstream denominations, many could point to doctrine that frowns on homosexuality, just like Catholic churches can refuse to marry divorcees.
I expect a racist church could, legally, refuse to perform a wedding for a black or interracial couple, if that would violate the precepts of their faith.
Essentially, when a religious authority performs a marriage, it’s a religious act, so I think the court would declare that the religious figure has the right to define the rules under which that religious act will be performed, and cannot be compelled to do otherwise.
If a gay, or interracial couple, seeks to be married by an officiant from a church that strongly disapproves of gay or interracial couples, a case could be made that the two parties are essentially of *different religions*, and neither party can be allowed to force the other party to act against the tenets of their own religion.
A gay couple or an interracial couple would have to use a justice of the peace, or else find a church that holds more accomodating beliefs. (That may not even be one in a different denomination, just a different church under the authority of a different pastor with a different style and set of beliefs.)
Tonal Crow
@Linda:
The argument that legal gay marriage will require churches to solemnize marriages they detest, is a propaganda technique intended to get the sheep bleating to their legislators and shearing themselves onto the collection plate. Few Christianists seem to be concerned that this bleat clearly violates the 9th Commandment ("You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor"). I guess this is yet another blatant hypocrisy to be excused by the self-serving bromide "Christians aren’t perfect…just forgiven".
A related (but non-fatuous) argument is that antidiscrimination laws might require antigay people who provide secular services (e.g., caterers, photographers, landlords) to serve gay couples on the same terms as straight couples. I have some sympathy with this argument with regard to landlords who rent out an attached unit (and more so with respect to housemates) [1], but damned little for others. Conducting a business is not like choosing friends, and is not covered by the same constitutional guarantees of freedom of association.
[1] My sympathy is limited to the issue of upholding the right of freedom of association.
Dr.BDH
You should know that never every heterosexual marriage in one state is always recognized by every other state. If state "A" allows you to remarry immediately after divorcing but state "B" requires a waiting period, your marriage in A may not be binding in B. I learned this from a family law attorney who was writing our wills; there are apparently several such differences in marriage laws that can create problems during probate and determining placement of surviving children. It might never come up until someone challenges it for their own purpose, but could be very messy if they do. Maybe the federal government should come up with a federal marriage license that is always honored across state lines.
Although the wingnuts would probably call that fascism.
Xenos
@Library Grape:
The full faith and credit clause does not apply to marriages, though – otherwise the Loving case would never have come up. As an example of this, in Rhode Island it is legal to marry your first cousin. If you move over the border to Massachusetts, though, the marriage will not be recognized and will be considered incestuous. Remember Jerry Lee Lewis? His marriage was perfectly legal as long as he did not leave his state, but he was committing statutory rape if he moved to California.
If the first couple couple stays in Rhode Island, though, the Federal Government is pretty much compelled to recognize the marriage as legitimate under federalism principles.
Dennis-SGMM
This is one of the thousand things that has drained "conservative thought" of all coherence or relevance. Why in the world would a true conservative want the government poking its nose into a deeply personal compact between two adults? The conservatives thought that they cut themselves a fat hog when they got the fundies on board. Then came Terri Schiavo and conservatism turned into a quasi-theocratic morality play. How’s that working out for them?
Comrade Dread
Unless the reason for this is that a case(s) has been dismissed out of hand by a judge, this doesn’t exactly settle the matter then and leaves legal action as a recourse.
miwome
You said:
And if the SCOTUS makes gay marriage constitutional, what would an amendment do anyway?
I think that confusion comes from his use of the word "constitutionalize." He doesn’t mean "make it constitutionally valid," he means "make it a constitutional issue," i.e. something that would be debated–and could be settled either way–on a constitutional level. He’s basically saying that he recognizes how profoundly stupid the federalist patchwork we currently have on this issue is, and agrees on a logistical level (as well as due to the fact that he’s scared of gay marriage and we had two states legalize it in the past week and a half) that it’s going to have to be more broadly addressed sooner or later; he sees the tide turning in gay marriage’s favor and so wants to see the debate happen now when he thinks he has a better chance of winning it.
But of course this is about What Rod Dreher Knows The People Want, which–if they only could see!–is to keep having fits of the heebie-jeebies. Damn those activist judges!
Zuzu's Petals
@Cris:
However, discrimination based on race, as in Loving, triggers the most stringent level of equal protection review, requiring the government to show a compelling interest in the categorization.
As far as I know, sexual orientation has not given rise to that level of review by the federal courts. It hasn’t been found to be a protected class, like race. Nor has a federal court found a ban on same sex marriage to infringe on a fundamental right (as far as I know). Thus, the court may just look for a rational basis for the discrimination (a very easy test to meet), or something in between rational basis and compelling state interest.
Jon H
@Comrade Dread: "The photographer case happened and she lost. So, again, it’s not complete lunacy."
There’s most likely a big difference in how the government views a mere service like photography, and the performance of a religious rite the details and conditions of which are a strictly religious matter and issues of conscience.
The government gets involved when food isn’t served to black people, but they aren’t going to get involved if a bishop refuses to serve communion to someone, or even a class of someones.
Steve
Is it your impression that churches can be found civilly liable if they refuse to marry an interracial couple? Really?
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
Since you can file a $54,000,000 lawsuit against your dry cleaner for losing your pants, you’re right that any damn fool can file whatever lawsuit s/he wants. Doesn’t mean they’ll win.
Oh, and the photographer? Worked with the public. That means she is not a church.
MikeJ
"We are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race."
Skinner V Oklahoma
Comrade Dread
@Mnemosyne
Sure. NPR shines through again. :)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91554986
The photog is mentioned near the end. There are actually more cases like that out there than I thought.
So, yeah, I don’t think that those fears are entirely unfounded.
Darkrose
What gets me about this is that if I were to take leave of my senses and try to have a church wedding, I:
a) Would start off with the Unitarians or Episcopalians or some other church that supported marriage equality. I wouldn’t go to a Catholic or a Southern Baptist-affiliated church because I already know they don’t like me.
b) If I did accidentally mistake a Catholic church for an Episcopalian one, as soon as they said, "No, we don’t do same-sex marriages, I’d turn around and walk out. Why would I want to force someone who doesn’t want to perform my wedding ceremony to do so, and have my wedding day ruined by a pissy officiant? Give me the nice, terribly earnest young woman at the Sacramento County Clerk’s Office any day.
Honestly, you’d think I had nothing better to do than to sit around wondering how to ruin the institution of marriage for all y’all straight people. It’s not like my Sims are going to play themselves, plus Issue 14 of City of Heroes is due out any day now. That’s what’s important to me–I’m not thinking about the marriages of people I don’t know and probably wouldn’t like if I did.
torrentprime
I think one thing that we might be overlooking in, say, the minister versus the photographer is this: Of course Rod knows that the minister is already protected but the photographer is not. That’s the point. He wants the photographer protected too. He wants the person who works next to the (warning, hypothetical shift) gay photographer protected for openly harassing him. He wants the person who hires or (more likely) fires the gay photographer protected. He wants the protections extended into the secular world as well as the pulpit. He wants to legally discriminate even in conducting business, not just friendships or religion.
asiangrrlMN
@wasabi gasp:
Will you marry me? I don’t care if you are male or female.
Like I stated early, I don’t buy into marriage as an institution, so it bothers me that the LGBT folk have decided to latch onto this as an issue. I, too, am of the belief that we need to separate what the law gives (civil marriage) from what the churches/temples/etc. give (religious marriage). It’s hard for me to really discuss this issue because I don’t have the emotional connection to the word ‘marriage’ that many people do. To me, it’s about equality. They could call it froggy dancing for all I care as long as everyone receives equal benefits under the law.
As I also stated earlier, I believe our laws favor married people unfairly over single ones including the tax breaks, the inheritance laws, CostCo. (OK, that’s not government-issued, but I want a single’s CostCo., damn it!), so I am ambivalent at best about the whole issue.
I think a relationship between two people, if it’s what the people want, can be called anything and still be as meaningful.
Don’t forget the florists need protection, too. The Catholics are up in arms about the poor florists who might have to sell bouquets to teh gays. Of course, this begs the question–where are these straight, Catholic florists?
I read about that on Pam’s House blend a few weeks ago, so you can go there to find the link.
geg6
Comrade Dread, are you being a little obtuse here? You’re asking for proof of ltigation that virtually never happens because no attorney with a brain would take such a loser of a case. No church has ever been nor will ever be forced to marry anyone they don’t want to. There are numerous alternative ways for formalizing a marriage and the First Amendment explicitly forbids it. The only time a church must not discriminate is when what they are doing is funded by the government, like at a soup kitchen or rehab or job training program. Such a suit, should anyone be so foolish as to file one, would be thrown out with great public mockery and general hilarity by the entire legal community.
Tonal Crow
@Comrade Dread: The case is closed on this. Churches are free to marry (or to refuse to marry) anyone they want. Remember "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"? If you have *any* caselaw to support your argument, produce it now.
BDeevDad
The wingnuts should Focus on their own damn Families.
Joey Maloney
@Violet:
Mickey Kaus’s heart leaps with joy.
asiangrrlMN
@BDeevDad:
Amen to that! P.S. Thanks again for your video on the other thread. I appreciate it.
Ecks
@joes527:
In principle you could remove the word "marriage" from all the federal laws, and just substitute "life partners" or something, but it would be
a] UNBELIEVABLY messy. The word is cross referenced in endless statutes, governmental and not governmental. And even if you could pass a federal law saying "all federal laws that refer to "marriage" now will read "life partnership", there are endless OTHER organizations that would have to change their laws. Every corporation or university with policies that are contingent upon employees being married would have to change their laws too.
b] You’d get all kinds of weird cases – elderly siblings living together might start applying for life partner status as a way to deal with random legal issues – I don’t know if that would per se be a bad thing, but it’d be a huge and weird cultural shift – would they then be barred from driving across the border to Canada if other countries consider "life partner" to mean married, but consider that siblings aren’t allowed to marry each other? Yeah, it would be fucked up.
c] Other than ironing out this one little debate that is going away anyway (being as support for gay marriage is rising nationally about 2% a year). I mean, we can go through all the federal books and replace the word "tax" with "sugar donut," but it wouldn’t be long if you did before the reichtards would be throwing Krispy Kreme’s into the river instead of tea bags… People would just adopt the new term with equal vigor once they got over the initial round of bitching about how stupid and evil your original change was.
Comrade Dread
Tonal Crow, I don’t see it as settled, because if someone has a right to be married, then we have a conflict of rights which is generally something the courts settle.
If someone wanted to push the issue on this, for whatever reason, I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t.
As Mnemosyne said in his last post, yes, it is completely possible that a judge would dismiss the case without comment, but it is also completely possible that they would not.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
And yet not a single one where a church was sued, successfully or unsuccessfully, for refusing to marry a couple. Which is, you know, the actual topic at hand.
Dennis-SGMM
@BDeevDad:
Bwahahahahaha! Wait ’til he hits prison and is told that he either comes up with fifty bucks a week or finds himself a daddy.
Tiparillo
His brand of Christianity – after venue shopping till he found one that fit his view of the world – views homosexuality as a sin and immoral. He fears being shamed – or legally compelled – into having to change this view. If marriage is extended to gays it codifies the acceptance of gays – something he fears as he ‘tolerates’ but doesn’t accept gays. Jesus wept, what a maroon.
Jon H
@Comrade Dread: "So, yeah, I don’t think that those fears are entirely unfounded."
Of course, the photographer case would have been completely avoided had the person shown an iota of tact and just said they were booked solid, rather than saying, essentially "you’re not good enough".
Bill Teefy
I am worried that the States will be forced to perform Civil Unions instead of the marriages they have traditionally performed since we made States.
Currently marriage is the legal term for the legal union. When I got married the priest I had, said, "Now by the power invested in me by the State of California…"
I don’t want my marriage taken away by some Christian whackos who want the power of the law behind their beliefs.
If they want to go back and re-read the Bible (which wasn’t written in English) and use the term for a union between a single man and a single woman – which would be somewhere after the Old Testament if the Bible ever did specify that specific concept. More power to them. They can call it Klabajeh for all I care.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
In the pants case, the judge did not dismiss it. He ruled in favor of the defendant. If a judge wanted to set a legal precedent that set out that, no, you can’t sue a church, that’s probably the way s/he would go rather than refusing to hear the case at all.
(Also, I’m a she.)
Martin
None of it matters. Churches are private institutions, that like any business have the right to refuse service to any customer. That’s held true for 230 years now and there’s no reason to believe it won’t hold true for the next 230.
State marriage certificates don’t require a ceremony. Sign it in front of a witness and bam, you’re married. The church can’t prevent you from marrying because they aren’t necessary to the state’s process. If you want the church to perform some kind of service, then the church has the same rights as any other body that you might approach for services.
End of story.
Mnemosyne
@Jon H:
Plus I seriously doubt that the ruling will stand once it gets to the state Supreme Court. Not that that will stand in the way of anyone’s sense of martyrdom.
asiangrrlMN
May I just add that if the right were truly concerned about the sanctity of marriage and such, they would work on, oh, their own marriages? I mean, straights have not done a bang-up job of it, themselves. I find it more than a bit ironic that the party of Rush and Newt are blathering about the sanctity of marriage–not to mention their idol, Ronald Reagan. If marriage is all that sacred, then there should be no divorce (no, I am not advocating that, either).
Blah blah blah is what I hear when I hear about the horrors of teh gays getting married.
The Moar You Know
@asiangrrlMN: What are you talking about? I’m single and I’ve had a Costco card for twenty years.
MikeJ
I believe the argument is that if the government was out of the marrying business, you could call yourself married if you wanted to no matter what. You’d still need a civil union from the state to get the legal benefits it afforded, and those would be denied to no one.
Already a priest can say that he doesn’t consider you married, or that only people married by his sect are "really" married. Why the fuck do you care what a guy in a dress says? If you say you’re married, you would be as legally married as anyone else.
Ecks
You have a right to get married, but not a right to be married in any specific venue. So long as there is readily available to you a means by which SOMEONE will marry you, then you don’t have a legal case that your right has been abrogated.
So it would probably be constitutionally illegal to rule that ONLY, church X could conduct marriages, because then people actually could be deprived of their right.
Xenos
@Mnemosyne:
I take it you are not a-muse-d?
gopher2b
I didn’t read the comments but I’m sure someone mentioned it: he’s referring to the "full faith and credit" clause of the constitution. Its the reason Illinois has to honor my New Hampshire marriage, etc. Each state must give "full faith and credit" the legal and administrative decision of the other states. The DOMA basically said that FFC clause isn’t applicable to gay marriage. Total BS.
Jon H
@Mnemosyne: "Plus I seriously doubt that the ruling will stand once it gets to the state Supreme Court. Not that that will stand in the way of anyone’s sense of martyrdom."
Yeah, it’s probably key that the case was handled by a state body, not a court.
I must say the ‘offended’ gay couple must be pretty insufferable, to get that bent out of shape over something so minor and when so little had been invested on their part. It was just an email! At least the photographer was upfront about it, didn’t lead them on at all, or pitch a hissy fit at the event itself. They had plenty of time to find another photographer.
Also: consider that gay marriage itself really has nothing to do with the case. The whole scenario could have happened had they sought to hire a photographer to work at a birthday party, or a GLBT fundraiser. They likely would have refused any such work. It’s not about *the marriage*, it’s about *the gay*.
calipygian
My question is, why is Rod’s God such a fucking pussy that He needs to beg the State for protection?
Can’t He just smite us non-believers and Sodomites or some shit?
AhabTRuler
@gbear: Christ. How did I see the gears turning in her head over the radio?
calipygian
Also, let me get this straight: Christian traditions with the force of law, GOOD!
Muslim tradition with the force of law: BAD :(
I wonder if Muslims would get the same protection that Christians would get in Rod’s scheme.
Me thinks not.
Jon H
@gopher2b: "Each state must give "full faith and credit" the legal and administrative decision of the other states."
Except this isn’t true. Plenty of administrative things don’t cross state lines. Licenses to practice various professions. Gun permits. Etc.
Tonal Crow
@Comrade Dread: In other words, you have no caselaw that even casually supports your argument. I, on the other hand, have not only the 1st Amendment itself, but also, e.g., Young v. Northern Ill. Conference of United Methodist Church, 21 F.3d 184,
187-88 (7th Cir. 1994). In that case, the court held that the 1st Amendment prohibits judicial inquiry into church decisions about employing a minister — even when the decision was alleged to be based upon race and/or gender discrimination. http://www.churchstatelaw.com/cases/YoungVNorthIllinois.asp . See also http://www.law.indiana.edu/ilj/volumes/v74/no1/eikenber.pdf for an illuminating review of the "ministerial exception" to antidiscrimination statutes.
Ecks
@Jon H: You obviously haven’t tried to find a wedding photographer recently. In a small town.
Library Grape
@Xenos: Having gone to law school and having taken family law, I can assure you that full faith and credit does indeed apply to marriage. What you are getting hung up on is the so-called "public policy" exception, wherein if State A makes incestuous marriages illegal and State B does not, State A can refuse to recognize an incestuous marriage performed in State B on public policy grounds. There is no public policy exception that would cover gay marriage.
Jon H
@Ecks: "You obviously haven’t tried to find a wedding photographer recently. In a small town"
Nope. On the other hand, I’d rather encounter the situation in question than have to deal with my brother’s wedding photographer: after the wedding, she flaked out, had a "life change", gave up her photography business, and it was really hard to get any additional copies of photos from her.
gopher2b
Not really. Both Loving and your hypo involved criminalizing the acts. In Loving it was a crime to leave the state and marry interacially (as well as have relations). The Lovings were prosecuted for their "crime" and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down on 14th Amendment due process grounds ("fundamental right to marry"). This precedent would apply (possibly) if a state made it illegal for a gay couple could not marry in another state. You would run into serious Lawrence problems in this situation too because the purpose of the law would really be to outlaw sex between same sex couples.
What people are talking about now is whether a state has to recognize an out-of-state marriage under civil law.
Library Grape
@Comrade Dread: The reason it would be dismissed out of hand by a judge is simple. There is absolutely no statutory or constitutional basis on which to force a church to perform a wedding for teh gays. None, zero, zilch. Period. It’s the same argument that would apply to a church refusing to perform a marriage between two people of different faiths. It happens all the time. Is there any basis for a lawsuit to force the church to marry the two people of different faiths? No. Claiming otherwise, in either circumstance, is a lie — a flat-out, ignorance-based lie.
Ecks
@calipygian:
Yes, that’s exactly right.
Also:
Buddhist tradition with force of law, probably OK, so long as it doesn’t in any way affect a Christian,
Jewish tradition with force of law, definitely OK, so long as it doesn’t affect a Christian, UNLESS it speeds the rebuilding of the temple at the mount, hence encouraging a timely apocalypse, in which case it is not only to be encouraged, but well funded too.
Any questions?
Update, @ Jon H: Ok, you win :)
Jon H
@Ecks: Also, Albuquerque isn’t that small.
r€nato
@Jaquandor:
in other words, he’s hoping for some evil liberal judicial activism to inspire a fear-based backlash.
Kind of like how righties keep saying that what the GOP really needs to get them back in power, is another 9/11.
Mnemosyne
@Jon H:
She sounds like the makeup artist who took my deposit and ran off to Massachusetts after claiming to have cervical cancer. Rumor had it that she started a photography business once she got there, so hopefully it wasn’t the same person.
asiangrrlMN
@The Moar You Know:
You’re kidding me. I’ve been there with my bro, and I don’t buy much other than chocolate because the quantities are so huge. I want the great prices with half the bulk.
r€nato
@Xenos:
now, now Xenos. All right-thinking Americans know that the institution of marriage is and has always been eternal and unchanging.
gopher2b
@Jon H:
There is a public policy exception to the FFC which is (probably) why gun permits would not apply.
State would have a difficult time arguing there should be a public policy exception here because of Lawrence (the case that overturned Texas sodomy laws). Scalia foreshadowed this in his dissent.
BTW, it could apply to gun permits now given the DC handgun decision. That would be an interesting application.
(I have another post pending but it needs attention because I said "inc**uous")
r€nato
@Martin:
no, not true that a business can refuse service to any customer. Might wanna look up that business about blacks sitting at lunch counters at Woolworth’s down south about 45 years or so ago.
gopher2b
A constitutional amendment overrides a SCOTUS decision.
Library Grape
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Speaking as a gay and a lawyer, I can elaborate. Sexual orientation has not yet been found to be a suspect class. However, the right to engage in private consensual sexual conduct was found in Lawrence v. Texas to be a right protected by the due process clause of the 14th amendment, but not a fundamental right. The Lawrence court only used a rational basis standard of review but yet struck down the sodomy law in question because it found that invidious discrimination against gay people cannot be a legitimate basis for government action.
r€nato
@Dennis-SGMM:
Conservatives value corporations more than people.
Definitive proof: the Commodities and Futures Modernization Act – that wonderful piece of legislation which made the current fucked economy possible – was championed by uber-Republicans Phil and Wendy Gramm.
CFMA specifically excludes credit default swaps and derivatives from any sort of regulation. The rationale being, these are contracts freely entered into by private parties so the gummint should butt out. Which is entirely reasonable, seeing as how it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket should AIG and some European bank decide to enter into a contract which transfers the risk of toxic mortgage defaults destroying the value of obscure securities from one party’s books to the other.
Oh, right.
On the other hand, if two legally competent, adult men or adult women want to freely enter into a marriage contract – SOCIETY IS DOOOOOOMED!
gopher2b
Cole,
I just reread your post (more slowly) and I agree with you. No court would ever force a church to marry a gay couple. He’s either talking about marriage as a religious institution, he’s trying to heat up the masses, or he’s really, really stupid and has never heard of a Justice of the Peace.
Ecks
Oh come ON now. If we can’t discriminate against gays, who can we discriminate against, fer heavens sake!
/Dreher’s id.
Left Coast Tom
My stab at an interpretation of Dreher’s quoted text…
I think Dreher’s worried that if the public accepts same-sex marriage and he continues to act as though same-sex couples have cooties, he’ll be taunted. As we know, taunting right-wingers for their foolishness is soul-crushing to them. "Freedom" apparently means "a state where right-wingers don’t have to deal with anything soul-crushing". So the taunting is a direct threat to Freedom[tm].
He reasonably thinks his odds of getting a Constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage are better now than in the future…see Nate Silver for details, though I believe his model has to be changed to incorporate % Mormon population, no way do I think Utah approves same-sex marriage in 2013. He thinks he can use this amendment to force his views upon the rest of society, somehow forgetting the fate of the 18th Amendment.
aimai
looks like moderation ate my whole post:
I don’t think that what Dreher et al are referring to is the realistic fear that individual churches will be forced to perform gay marriages. I think this post is meant to refer to the generic and almost ambient fear that Churches and pastors will not be permitted to preach against the gays and that there will be no "conscience clause" that allows bigoted public servants to refuse to sign documents (from adoption papers to marriage lisences.)
I say that not because they can’t also be utterly and absurdly and erroneously wrong on the "we’ll have to marry those people at our own altars" thing. But because they have been spreading the rumor that the Pastors, and the Bible itself, will be "banned" as a form of "hate speech." That was absolutely one of the biggest rumors going the rounds in California among the Prop 8 people.
In addition if you read far right wing christianist blogs they are convinced not only that gay marriage is an absolute evil but that it is the thin end of the wedge for a kind of anti-family agenda. They refer constantly to Germany’s supposed laws "criminalizing homeschooling" (I believe Germany does have such a law, presumably because parents aren’t permitted to deny their children’s rights to basic education). Gay marriage and all kinds of children’s/teens sexual, educational, and medical rights initiatives are all seen as a huge threat to the ability of Christian families to withdraw from a dangerous social world and replicate themselves. That’s partly why they are so opposed to public schools. Not just because there are so many perceived "bad influences" (language, drinking, smoking, dating) but because the teen cohort replaces the parents as the ultimate arbiter of what is right. So gay/straight alliances are bad not just because they (supposedly) are a way that gays recruit into their evil cults but also simply another way in which religious principles of family autonomy, autarky, and authority are undermined by individualism.
All of that is rolled into the legalization of gay marriage not just because teh ghey is thought to be so bad but because it brings each and every good christian family into potential conflict with the rampant individualism that supposedly underlies gay families. Its not that they think they will see them at church but that they will see them in businesses, stores, streets, gov. buildings, schools, and etc… and they wont be able (as they see it) to shout "vade in retro satanas" spit, and walk away.
aimai
Mnemosyne
@gopher2b:
That was definitely an aspect of the Loving case, though — they were married perfectly legally in one state and then moved to Virginia, where their marriage was illegal. So it did involve states having to recognize each others’ marriages. The Jerry Lee Lewis case was pre-Loving, so the precedent had not yet been set.
I’m not sure, but I don’t think that one state can invalidate a marriage that’s legal in another state even if it violates the second state’s laws (like with cousin marriage). If they could, then your drunken Vegas marriage really could stay in Vegas.
r€nato
look, the explanation is very simple.
Strip away all the ridiculous bullshit arguments and it all boils down to this:
gay men having sex is icky and disgusting to a certain segment of the population. Every time they hear the word ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual’, they cannot stop themselves from visualizing two men kissing, a man sucking another man’s cock or – worse yet – some guy buggering some other guy’s hairy ass.
Personally, I try not to think much about sex acts which I find unappealing, such as wearing two wetsuits with a dildo up the ass. It’s never occurred to me to run around demanding that the Constitution be amended in order to keep me from visualizing sex acts which I don’t ever care to engage in.
I guess I am just weird that way.
Library Grape
@r€nato:
pay attention to the comments. religious institutions are generally exempt (under the so-called ministerial exception) from antidiscrimination laws.
See:
The Moar You Know
@asiangrrlMN: Get creative. You can freeze a lot of things you wouldn’t normally think of, bread for example.
I worked for them back when they were Price Club (a California chain that Costco bought) in 1985. So I guess I’ve had the card for longer than 20 years. Love the place. Worth it for the cheap gas alone.
Library Grape
@Ecks: @Ecks:
Midget leprosy-suffering foreign quadriplegic animal-phuckers?
r€nato
I am. I was referring to the original commenter comparing the ‘rights’ of a church with the ‘rights’ of a private business. That comparison just doesn’t fly. A private business does not have a blanket, unrestrained right to refuse service to customers. A private business is not given extraordinary protection by the Bill of Rights in the way a religious institution is.
Jon H
@r€nato: " Might wanna look up that business about blacks sitting at lunch counters at Woolworth’s down south about 45 years or so ago."
Or, you know, recent Denny’s cases.
But I think a church refusing to perform a religious rite in a manner they don’t approve is going to be treated differently. (Which is a different matter than someone wishing to use a church facility with someone from a different church officiating, if that facility has in the past been made available for others to do the same.)
Ecks
@Library Grape: God damnit, you’re right! Let’s get those fuckers!
Edit, sorry, phuckers!
Library Grape
@r€nato:
The comparison is indeed inapt, for the reason I mentioned above. Private businesses may not generally discriminate due to federal antidiscrimination laws passed under the 14th amendment, which apply to private conduct via the 13th amendment
Neil H
Precisely. It’s a favourite tactic of the anti-gay right to try and conflate the issue of gay marriage with the issue of anti-discrimination ordinances protecting gay people, and I’m pleased to see that someone’s noticed that they are two different things. How depressing to see that even NPR has fallen for the anti-gay line about it being "civil unions and domestic partnership protections" that are enabling challenges like the lawsuit against Elane Photography. It is not. It is already existing anti-discrimination law. Read the full text of the ruling and you’ll see that the legality or otherwise of gay marriage had nothing to do with the decision.
gopher2b
All this supports the point that you should have to get "married" twice: once before a Justice and again (if you want) in your church. Why we deputize priests, Rev., Pastor’s to convey states rights is beyond me. But, then again, I’m bitter because I have to sit through a Catholic mass wedding next w/e.
JG
Just want to make a quick point about the analogies to Loving v. Virginia – this is really not the same thing, so the idea that other states (because of Loving) would have to recognize anything doesn’t necessarily work. Racial classifications are held to a higher standard.
While the Lawrence v. Texas case in 2003 struck down sodomy laws, turning the corner on actually criminalizing the sexual part of homosexual relationships, SCOTUS explicitly did not go to equal protection to do it. While it’s celebrated as a gay rights decision (and to an extent it is), it’s (almost) as big of a case for the idea of privacy rights – and the majority opinion was all about liberty and privacy.
Sadly, sexual orientation does not fall into the same category as race – it is not a protected class at the federal level. The Supreme Court, therefore, cares a lot less about whether or not states make laws discriminating against people on that basis. For race or a "fundamental right" like speech, the law must meet strict scrutiny (aka it will almost always be struck down). For non-protected classes, the law only must meet "rational basis" review (aka it will almost always be upheld). Sandra Day wrote an entire concurrence about how a "let’s save traditional marriage" law would certainly pass rational basis review so long as it didn’t say it was aimed at teh gheys.
I think SCOTUS might someday soon (after Obama puts a few on the court) have the courage to strike down DOMA or somehow use Equal Protection properly. But as someone else said, if a Constitutional Amendment were to be passed that would win.
But none of that bears any relevance to the fact the religious freedom is always held up as the end-all be-all of protected categories…well, at least Christianist religion and most of the time other ones. Churches aren’t obligated to go against their foundational beliefs, so if your church hates teh gheys you can face God over your lack of judgment in church-choosing but you won’t have to perform any super nekkid orgy ghey weddings.
Library Grape
On a lighter note, did everyone see this post on Rush Limbaugh getting pwned by one of his listeners? http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/rush-limbaugh-gets-pwned-caller-you-han
toujoursdan
The photographer was subject to similar laws like we have in Canada and they have in the UK. If you advertise a service to the general public, you may not discriminate. You can’t pick and choose which members of the general public you serve. The public is the public and should have confidence that if they walk into a place of business they will be treated like everyone else.
In this case, the photographer never mentioned that she was a born again Christian who only photographs people acceptable to born again Christians on her website, and only claimed this after first agreeing to photograph the lesbian couple in an email correspondence. The case revolved around whether the photographer provided a "public service" and whether this subjected the photographer to the NM Human Rights Code.
Churches and other religious groups have never advertised a service to the general public. They serve their members according to their doctrines and disciplines. Catholics schools don’t have to take Jews. Scientologists don’t have to house Buddhists in their celebrity centres. Mormons don’t have to give "celestial weddings" in their temples to Episcopalians.
It’s hard to imagine that there hasn’t already been test cases by others who wanted church services. Gay marriage isn’t going to change this. It’s an apples to oranges comparison. Find a case of a church being forced to violate its doctrines and then let’s talk, not a public business.
Library Grape
@JG:
As a lawyer, I can say that there is no principled reason for the Supreme Court to distinguish Loving v. Virginia from a gay marriage case.
The core holding of Loving was that the Equal Protection clause prohibited the government from engaging in invidious discrimination against a group based on the immutable characteristic of such group. It is clear that being gay is an immutable characteristic, even though the Court has not yet held as such. As a result, there is no principled basis for the government to engage in discrimination against gays, especially considering the Lawrence v. Texas ruling that discrimination against people based on their right to engage in private sexual conduct cannot be a legitimate basis for government action.
JG
Sorry to double-post, but I should have refreshed comments before writing, people (Zuzu’s petals, Library Grape) already covered what I said, and more eloquently!
*bad commenter, bad*
Library Grape – I’m a lawyer too, and I agree that there is no principled reason for distinguishing. But courts and SCOTUS in particular seem to enjoy hiding behind alternate legal theories and dodging the heart of the question quite often. Lawrence was a good step in the right direction, but it took the easy way out. I can only hope that they’ll eventually get all the way there.
gopher2b
@JG:
Equal protection will never work unless the make homosexuals a protected class (which I can’t imagine they would do as long as Kennedy, Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts are on the Court).
DOMA is a better approach because (as you note) if you cannot regulate private conduct under Lawrence you really don’t have any public policy basis to ban the public aspects of marriage….especially when you could lawfully gain so many of them through normal contract law. Imagine being the attorney arguing for preservation of DOMA and having to answer this question:
Q: So you agree that a gay man can bequeth his estate to another gay man through his will, but it would be against public policy to allow his assets to move as a default because they are married? How do you justify that distinction.
A: [squirm, squirm……”your honor…..they……probably have gay sex and they’re both hairy…..your honors….GROSS!!]
That doesn’t really carry the day.
Library Grape
@JG:
Agreed! To their decision-making process, I’ll quote my ConLaw professor: "They be the Supremes!" (i.e., they can do whatever the phuck they want)
Edit: Actually, please bear in mind that the Supremes still haven’t heard a gay marriage case so they haven’t, in fact, done the distinguishing yet.
Tonal Crow
@Library Grape:
As Justice Jackson said, "…we are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final." Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 540 (1953).
Library Grape
@Tonal Crow: exactly! :)
Neil H
Full opinion of the New Mexico Human Rights Commission about the photography case for anyone still interested (20 pages long). A statement on page 8 may help explain why the same-sex couple sued rather than just go on to find a new photographer:
"After receiving Ms. Elaine Huguenin’s response to her inquiry on November 28,2006 and learning of Ms. Elaine Huguenin’s different response to a similar inquiry by Ms. Collinsworth, without the mention of same-sex, Ms. Willock remained fearful and anxious about seeking other photographers to photograph their same-sex commitment ceremony. [Testimony of Willock]"
They didn’t seek other photographers because they were too scared that they’d get exactly the same treatment as they got from the first one they tried.
someguy
So what? They shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate. If they do, then they should be denied every benefit the government offers, from tax free status, to school voucher eligibility, grants to do ‘charitable’ work, to zoning that allows them to overflow their parking lots and have adherents park on the roadside on Sunday mornings. Really, the Establishment Clause says they aren’t supposed to enjoy state sanction – so they shouldn’t have these benefits anyhow.
LD50
What’s fascinating about this is that it tacitly admits that this guy’s conception of American Christianity is really about nothing more than hating gays. That is, that it’s impossible to be a Christian without fag bashing.
Ecks
Well you know what Jesus said about gays?
Absolutely nothing actually.
He mostly just talked about how people who don’t believe right are going to be in a lot of trouble, and that it is good to give money to poor people, cure the sick, and visit the imprisoned. With the exception of that first part, he was pretty much a DFH.
kommrade reproductive vigor
They’re hoping for pictures.
My 2 cents about "Maybe if we call it something other than marriage, the fReichtards will shut up."
If anyone really thinks this is about protecting the sanctity of jackshit, or upholding the traditions of fuck all, I really envy your faith in humanity.
This is about hanging on to one of the last socially acceptable ways to stick it to the kw33rs (the other being adoption bans). They’re not going to let go unless you get a 450 lb golf-cleat wearing SOB to tap dance on their hands.
What’s Mickelson up to these days?
ComradeDread
Thank you. I’ll review the cases you posted.
Offhand, though, there would still seem to be a difference between hiring a minister and performing a ceremony which is more like a service offered to the public.
But I’ve been wrong before. I’ll comment further once I’ve read these.
jcricket
I find the idea that we’re going to get 3/4 of the states to support amending the constitution to ban gay marriage, after 1/4 of them legalize it and another 1/4 waffle in that direction just ludicrous.
It took almost 100 years from the first state legalizing interracial marriage (or rather, amending their laws to remove the anti-miscegenation law from the books) for Loving v. Virginia. At that point 17 or 18 states still had anti-miscegenation laws on the books.
Whether or not DOMA is repealed in short order, I expect we’ll have 10-15 states with legal gay marriage within a decade, DOMA repeal and some kind of Supreme Court case. Dreher’s right that it’s inevitable,
Frankly, nothing could be better for Democrats and gay marriage than for the wingnuts and far-right evangelicals to try and come out en-masse to stop gay marriage. They will turn off an entire generation from voting Republican, permanently – because the young people see this issue as discrimination and aren’t going to be aligning themselves with a party whose sole issues are defending torture, whining about supposed persecution of Christians and hating the gays.
Comrade Darkness
@ryan: I used to be for this notion, but lately? Fuck that (with all due respect). I’m a gay atheist, in an almost seven year relationship, and goddammit I want to get "married" some day. My parents are married, his parents are married, and they don’t go to church at all. And that’s what I want, too. Why are we considering giving up the "marriage" title to churches because of a bunch of religious right nutjobs with a persecution complex?
Maybe someone else addressed this, but I haven’t read the whole thread. You can still get "married" under this system. Just as a hetro couple could just get civil unioned and not married. Find a nice unitarian, or church of the holy druid, or some liberal protestant sect, or whoever you like and get Married. Just because the state starts handing out strictly civil union certificates will not change what other licensed institutions choose to call their ceremony.
Maus
"April 7th, 2009 at 6:41 pm Reply to this comment
Svensker
I think a number of Christians (and maybe other religious folks, I don’t know) are afraid that if it becomes legal for gays to wed, then it may eventually become ILLEGAL for churches to refuse to marry them."
Churches in State? Good! State in Church, BAAAAD
*sigh*
jcricket
I believe the words you’re looking for are:
(apologies, but not really, to George Wallace).
Right now the Republican (but purely hetero) bear hug/embrace of fag bashing, torture, no-taxes-ever, all-war-all-the-time, hate-the-rest-of-the-world and absolutely-no-healthcare-that-doesn’t-suck is costing them (as I said a couple posts ago) an entire generation.
I say keep it up until the party is nothing but a charred ember of itself. Maybe then it will rebuild as some "sane" kind of opposition, but I doubt it. What’s left? Is there even any reason for conservatism to exist, when it’s proven about as useful as communism (and about as realistic)?
Ecks
@Comrade Darkness: So long as it is widely accepted that you can call it "marriage" no matter who does the ceremony (even if it’s the clerk at town hall) then I’m cool with that.
Not that this would solve a damn thing in practice (see Cleek above, for most concise rendition of why this is), making it a colossal waste of time. But, y’know, diffrent strokes…
Tax Analyst
Well, I’m late to the party again and I haven’t read any of the comments since I don’t have any time today, but I’m guessing Dreher realizes that if the Rear Guard doesn’t get something passed ASAP that blocks the inevitable acceptance of gay-marriage that there will soon come a time when the MAJORITY of people (and states) decide the fully accept gays as equals and decides to properly accept it as law. I guess from his point of view that would be a tuuurrrrible thing…god only knows why, though, and she apparently doesn’t wish to tell us.
Swimming against the tide of history must be awfully exhausting…and for so little eventual reward, too.
Ecks
@jcricket: I don’t know. The democrats need some sane form of opposition. They only look saintly when they have the Republicans to be put next to, and given enough unobstructed time in power any party gets corrupt and lazy (and I repeat, ANY party in ANY country). Whether that means republicans come to their senses, or another party starts up that has a firmer grip on reality… I don’t know.
Xenos
@aimai:
Maybe it sounds reductive to say so, but it really comes down to protecting patriarchy. Homophobia keeps the boys in line, teaches them to have a violent reaction to femininity, to hate the feminine part of themselves, and to lash out instinctively against anything that culturally undermines adult male authority figures. It really is a critical component of the acculturation process, and the patriarchs and their female enablers are very right to be terrified of it.
mcc
It is not, in fact, any less of a civil rights issue. There is no moral difference in declining a service to a gay couple, a Muslim couple, a black couple, or an interracial couple. In some jurisdictions (depending on whether, as I believe has already been mentioned upthread, sexual orientation receives "suspect class" scrutiny or what) there is no legal difference; it seems inevitable at this point that this standard will gradually spread to all American jurisdictions.
Where the legal equivalence holds, the rules are consistent. If you are providing a commercial service of some kind– such as a lunch counter, a hospital, or a photography service– you may not discriminate in who you provide your service to. If you are a governmental entity providing a state service, you may not discriminate in who you provide your service to. However, there are specific, very limited places where equality statutes and 14th amendment protections can not reach. For example, if you meet the very narrow legal standard for what constitutes a "private club", you can discriminate in who you admit to your private club, because the law determines that forcing you to do otherwise would violate your right to assemble. And if you are a religious institution, you can discriminate in who you provide religious services to, because the law determines that forcing you to do otherwise would violate your right to freedom of religion.
You’re asking for a citation on the idea that a church can decline a religious service (such as marriage) based on religion, race or sexual orientation. Frankly, despite looking, I can’t find an example where this has even been tested. I can tell you that virtually all (probably all) anti-discrimination laws write in exemptions of some sort for religious organizations directly into the text, which will make it difficult to mount such a legal challenge. Meanwhile I can give you three specific citations in this idea’s general vicinity.
First, I am finding some claims that the Mormon church refused to perform interracial marriages prior to 1978, but I cannot find a credible source on this claim and this may be an anti-Mormon slander. However I do know for a fact that the Mormons by policy did not allow blacks to attain the priesthood until 1978, and no one made them do otherwise. I offer this simply as an example of a major, mainstream church discriminating in who it provides its religious services to without repercussions well into the "post civil rights era".
Second, I am finding this fairly specific example that seems relevant:
Here the BSA was defined as a private organization, not a religious one, but it seems difficult to imagine the BSA’s position would have been weaker had they chosen (as they well might have) to claim themselves a religious organization.
Finally, I would note the contents of the Iowa decision from last week as an example of a state supreme court specifically noting that a right to marry does not constitute an obligation for any particular church to bless that marriage:
My general understanding is that the law guarantees Mr. Dreher the right to exclude people from his church and church services based on race, religion, sex, whatever he wants. This is because however abhorrent Mr. Dreher’s religion may be, the law determines that it has no power to limit Mr. Dreher from privately practicing it as he sees fit.
r€nato
@jcricket:
not to mention that I can easily visualize the anti-choice crowd hijacking anti-gay-marriage amendments going through legislatures in some states, and getting their elected cronies to use a ‘strike all’ to turn it into an anti-choice constitutional amendment.
It would be a very, very messy process. It would require a lot of money and grass roots organization with lots of potential for people with differing agendas to throw sand in the gears.
That’s sort of why the FF made it so hard, I guess. The Constitution shouldn’t be amended unless we’re really sure we mean to do it.
Tonal Crow
@ComradeDread:
The marriage ceremony is not much "like a service offered to the public". Churches always have solemnized only marriages that comport with their religious missions, and no others. That’s because, well, solemnizing particular kinds of marriages is central to their missions. Thus, for example, the Catholic Church refuses to marry divorcees, because it abhors divorce. This is very similar to a church refusing to hire a minister whom it believes would contravene its creed. But the cases I cited go further, by protecting a church from minister-related antidiscrimination suits even where the discrimination doesn’t arise from its creed. Since discrimination arising from a church’s creed has a stronger freedom-of-religion claim than non-creedal discrimination, I cannot imagine that a court would force a church to solemnize something it detests.
mcc
I should note that the courts in California have already done this. Sexual orientation in California currently constitutes a "suspect class". (Though this may not count for much, since until the state Supreme Court hands down its prop. 8 decision it remains to be seen whether the state constitution’s equal protection clause is actually enforceable.)
The Iowa court didn’t go that far, but if you look at the decision did rule that sexual orientation type classifications get some kind of heightened scrutiny– and they left the option of going all the way in future.
Library Grape
@mcc: awesome analysis FTW
gex
@ed: Awful lot of "if you guys are in the game, we’re taking the ball and going home" around here.
jl
The equal protection issue is perplexing. The Catholic church can get away with all sorts of weird rules. Not only no divorcees, but arbitrarily annulling marriages. Orthodox Jews have several provisions that discriminate against women.
So, what if I decided no divorcees get service in my business. If the Catholic church can do that with marriage, why cannot do that in my business?
Any lawyers here can clear that up?
Jon H
jl wrote: "So, what if I decided no divorcees get service in my business. If the Catholic church can do that with marriage, why cannot do that in my business?"
I suspect because a marriage ceremony in the Catholic Church is a religious rite, therefore the government has no business telling them how it’s supposed to work.
Your business is probably not engaging in a religious rite.
Tonal Crow
@jl:
A church is not a business. A church exists to promote its creed, which is protected by the 1st Amendment rights to freedom of religion and freedom of association. A business, in contrast, exists primarily to make money, so it receives minimal (or no) protection from the freedom of religion clause. And by offering services to the general public, a business waives its owner’s right to freedom of association. Also, many antidiscrimination statutes explicitly exempt churches (but, of course, not businesses!) from certain provisions.
Library Grape
@jl: religious institutions are generally explicitly exempted from the application of antidiscrimination laws.
jcricket
Three words: Na. Ganna. Happen.
After 10s of millions of dollars from out of state groups the best the anti-gay-marriage yahoos could do in California was 52%. Yes, I know there is plenty of support for gay marriage bans in conservative states, but Nate Silver put up some pretty convincing analysis that support is quickly falling away.
There’s no constitutional amendment. 10-15 states will outright pass marriage equality laws in 5-10 years, and DOMA will be repealed, leading to some kind of confrontation at the Supreme Court level (just like Loving v. Virginia).
Again, by making this a "signature issue" the Republicans are hitching their ride to a demographically shrinking group.
The Other Steve
I think the Republicans should start pushing harder for a Constitutional Amendment.
It’ll help cement a permanent majority for my lifetime.
Jon H
@Neil H: "They didn’t seek other photographers because they were too scared that they’d get exactly the same treatment as they got from the first one they tried."
That seems… odd. Frankly I’m not sure I buy that. At the very least, they could probably bring someone in from the Santa Fe area, which ought to be pretty gay-friendly. But Albuquerque seems to be pretty gay-friendly, too, as far as I can see online. With all the artsy types and new agey types in Santa Fe and Taos, I’d think there’d be *someone* around.
I’d have to think that if they got in touch with a GLBT focused paper or online forum, and said what happened, they’d probably be able to find a good, gay-friendly photographer in short order.
Tonal Crow
@The Other Steve: I think Republicans should go further, and push for a Constitutional Amendment requiring execution by torture for anyone who participates in a gay wedding. And anyone who even contemplates getting an abortion. That’ll get ’em a permanent majority, fer sure, you betcha.
gex
@Comrade Darkness: So, in other words gay people can get married but gay atheist people cannot.
Ecks
@jcricket: So then does Dreher actually have a point here. If the forces o’ evil want to even have a chance of winning this one, they need to try to ram the amendment through NOW, before attitudes get any more pro-gay. There are only 4 states now with legal marriage, and that != 25%. Further, three of those got there through court decisions. It actually might be possible for them to get an amendment through 75% of the states AT PRESENT, but not much longer… Though with a healthy democratic margin in the fed congress, that might be a nice safety valve cutting off the option for at least a few years.
Time is on our side (though I suspect even Nate’s 2% a year will stall out at some point).
Ecks
@Jon H: Okay, they might have been able to find hookups through an LGBT newspaper to find a photographer, but WHY SHOULD THEY HAVE TO? That’s like arguing "well sure, we boot all them black fellas out our restaurant, but surely they got their own places to eat at."
If I as a straight dude can walk into my nearest ABQ strip mall and find a wedding photog, but you (the generic you) as a gay dude have to import someone from Taos, then something be wrong with the picture.
jcricket
There are probably 50% of states that don’t have gay marriage that would outright block a constitutional amendment right now – through a combination of mobilizing liberal interest groups, democratic legislatures doing what Iowa and MA have done (not bringing the issue up for debate so it stalls legislatively), etc.
So even before an actual gay marriage law could pass in a state, a federal constitutional amendment (or even a state one) wouldn’t pass if brought up for a vote in far more than 4 states.
But yes, time is on our side, and apparently less time than I originally thought necessary. I think it’s this weird thing where the more attention the wingnuts put on the issue, the more it makes it an "us v. them" type of thing, and the more they end up on the losing side.
I know they think making things "black and white" makes it easy to choose, and in a sense they’re right. They’re just wrong about who’s in the majority, ultimately. The minorities (blacks, jews, immigrants, gays, atheists, feminists, liberals) are the majority.
jl
The ‘church is not a business’ approach sounds good to me for explaining why some organizations can discriminate for some functions, and others cannot discriminate in others. It’s also sensible, and seems not susceptible to issues of arbitrary application of the law.
So, I will go with that. And assume that other commenters who seemed to suggest otherwise are wrong. I am not a lawyer and I was confused from some of the comments -I tend to assume that pretty much anybody knows more than I do about legal issues.
So I still haven’t heard anything to change my mind that the term ‘marriage’ should be expunged from whatever the state does regarding domestic law. Sorry if that pisses off both liberals and conservatives. I want to get to equal protection under the law as soon as possible, and I do not care what it is called. And I am getting irked by what now seems to me to be a very harmful mixing of state and religion with this ‘marriage" terminology. I think the term "marriage’ carries an inescapable burden of religious connotation, and it just gotta go from state functions.
mcc
So I still haven’t heard anything to change my mind that the term ‘marriage’ should be expunged from whatever the state does regarding domestic law.
It is impractical. It would have to be changed in all 50 states to work; if it were changed in only some of the states, I.E. we had some states which had "marriages" and others which had "domestic partnerships", then the states issuing "marriage" would be issuing something which is worth more than what the other states issue (because "marriages" can be exported to marriage-only states, whereas DPs cannot) and the persons in the DP-only states would be at a disadvantage. Alternately we could pass a constitutional amendment, which would require only 3/4 of the states to participate. This is still impractical.
Any concerted, nationwide attempts to get the government to stop recognizing "marriage" will quickly run into the problem that the organized anti-gay-marriage forces don’t really care about the word "marriage", they in fact want to deny equal rights to homosexuals.
riptyde
I still have yet to hear a Christian conservative tell me why two dudes getting married 2000 miles away somehow devalues my marriage. Do couples honestly sit across the dinner table from each other in Colorado Springs and think "well I used to think it was great being married to my wife, but now that Adam and Steve got married, I think my marriage is meaningless"?
PaulW
What we learned in Unitarian Sunday School (yes, we had Sunday School) in re: Codespeak for the Religious Right:
"If it’s not done our way we’ll hold our breaths and turn blue and throw rocks at you until you let us dominate your every thought and existence. Praise Jebus because he’s the only Christian who was never as judgmental and dickish as the rest of us. So there."
riptyde
@mcc:
I have actually heard conservatives argue that homosexuals already have equal marriage rights to that of heterosexuals: both are allowed to marry someone of the opposite sex.
I wish I was joking.
Jon H
@Ecks: " Okay, they might have been able to find hookups through an LGBT newspaper to find a photographer, but WHY SHOULD THEY HAVE TO?"
Given that the only contact they’d had was an email inquiry, it seems significantly, qualitatively different from being ejected from the premises of a business due to one’s race.
In person, you can certainly experience intimidation. After all, you’re near someone who dislikes your race/sexual preference/religion and wants you gone. But by email? An email that, while tactless, is not aggressively expressed?
If I send an email to a photographer to inquire about hiring them, I’m not going to assume that I *am* going to hire them. Maybe they’ll turn out to be too expensive. Maybe their style is too ‘Glamour Shotz’. Maybe they aren’t responsive because they’re slackers.
The first email exchange is, IMHO, too early in the process of hiring a professional – no, not even hiring, at this point they’re just SEEKING a professional to hire – for someone to be going to a human rights commission because the person was a jerk in the manner they were in this case.
I’d think it would be more suitable if a mutual commitment had been made to hire the photographer, and then the photographer had pulled out for the reason given. That, at least, is a bit more like the ‘not served in a restaurant’ scenario.
"If I as a straight dude can walk into my nearest ABQ strip mall and find a wedding photog, but you (the generic you) as a gay dude have to import someone from Taos, then something be wrong with the picture."
Sure, but that’s not been established at all. It was just conjecture on my part. It might be necessary, worst-case if everyone else local was booked up, but I *seriously* doubt it would have been necessary because all the photographers in Albuquerque were tactless Christians. We’re talking about a city with a big state university, a decent-sized gay community, where pride parades take place, and which gets a fair amount of gay tourism. It’s not Oklahoma.
If this couple did have to seek people in Santa Fe, then straight couples in Albuquerque probably would be doing the same because everyone else was busy.
The plaintiffs freaked out after *one email exchange*. There’s no evidence that they made any effort to really determine the options open to them.
Incidentally, the story about the plaintiff’s fear doesn’t really hold together. On the one hand, they seem to have been surprised and shocked by the photographer’s response, which suggests that they had *not* experienced anti-gay bigotry before in Albuquerque, and expected their relationship to not be a big deal. If their experience of life in Albuquerque led them to expect tolerance, it doesn’t fit that they’d leap to the assumption that all the other photographers in the area would be intolerant Christians.
Zuzu's Petals
@MikeJ:
If you can find a federal case holding that a ban on same sex marriage infringed on a fundamental right under the federal Constitution, I’d be interested in seeing it.
Zuzu's Petals
@riptyde:
Yes, that’s a favorite meme.
However, the Loving court disposed of that reasoning quite handily:
Zuzu's Petals
@Library Grape: @Library Grape:
Great points. But remember that, while the Lawrence court recognized that sodomy laws were applied inequally, it struck the Texas law down on the basis of the private liberty interest at stake, not because of invidious discrimination against gays:
MikeJ
I haven’t seen one yet, but Skinner makes it pretty damned clear marriage is a fundamental right. Rarely are the Supremes so straightforward.
mcc
I think the best bet there would be "Gill et al. v. Office of Personnel Management et al."? But that was only filed a month ago…
jonas
@riptyde:
It’s dogwhistle language. They don’t literally mean that straight marriages will instantly hit the rocks if two dudes tie the knot. What they’re saying — primarily to fellow conservative Christians — is that the more same-sex relationships and non traditional marriages are normalized, the less they are able to argue for the normativity of man-on-top/women-and-children-underneath gender and power relations within their own marriages. What they’re basically admitting to is that gay marriage will blow the whole top off this patriarchy scam that they’ve been running for the past 4,000 years or so.
Beej
I haven’t read this whole thread, and this may have been covered already, but just in case, a couple of points:
"Civil unions" are different from "civil marriages". Vermont has legally recognized same-sex civil unions for a number of years now. It has only now legally recognized same-sex civil marriage.
Making same-sex marriage legal should have no effect on religious marriage. The state issues the marriage license, but allows duly constituted religions to perform their own marriages, provided the couple has secured the state license. Of course, it is also possible to be married by a judge or justice of the peace if a religious ceremony is not wanted.
Equal protection arguments do not apply to religious belief. The government cannot force the Catholic church to accept women as priests because Catholicism teaches that only men can hold that position. For many years, the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) held that black-skinned people were inferior and born of Cain (or something like that-I really don’t know what the reasoning was) and could not be members of the LDS church. It was not government intervention which changed that. It was a change in the Church’s doctrine.
As to a substantive due process argument (the "fundamental rights" thing), rights don’t get much more fundamental than the "free exercise" of religion. I doubt we’re going to see it clash with any other fundamental right.
The very idea that churches could somehow be forced by the government to conduct same-sex marriages if their doctrine said that such marriages were sinful or against the will of God is pretty laughable. I hope Dreher isn’t actually that stupid, but I’ve given up believing that you can expect reason or intelligence from the right.
Bulworth
I think Dreher is saying that–even though he normally objects to Activist Judges, especially the Surpremes, performing any sort of public policy function, which should always be reserved for legislative bodies, particularly at the State level–in this case, because these state legislative bodies aren’t doing what Dreher wants, Dreher wants the the Supreme Court to step in and correct these silly states and legislatures from making public policy.
Bulworth
Dreher was against Activist Judges before he was for them.
kommrade reproductive vigor
And at the end we have a winner.
This week has already been a very interesting one for fReichtard watchers, although I’m starting to get a bit dizzy.
Thomas Allen
Simple: He wants the Constitution to straightforwardly recognize and endorse a specific religious rite and privilege it over this "marriage" thing that is so common and dirty now that even Teh Gay can do it.
There are probably no legal problems with this…
Library Grape
@Zuzu’s Petals:
"The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual."
Quite right, although the subtext to the above holding is that naked discrimination cannot be a legitimate government purpose.
dana
I hate to point out the obvious, but there is no requirement now that any given church has to honor a state-issued marriage license. Right now, as a non-gay person, I can’t just order a Catholic priest to perform my ceremony, or waltz into a mosque and insist that the imam witness our contract. Extending the right to gay couples does *nothing* to change this; we don’t need to make special civil unions, because religious institutions *already* get to decide whom they want to marry.
rea
The last I looked, 24 states did not allow first cousins to marry. Many of those states refused to recognize cousin marriages performed in the 26 states which allow cousin marriages. Somehow, the Union has survived this inconsistency.
someguy
@ jonas
Bingo! The Long March Through The Institutions proceeds apace. While it would certainly be nice if Larry and Fred and Marsha and Sandy could get married, the primary purpose is to smash the patriarchal hegemony. The righties seem to think this particular institution is pretty important, and I think they’re right, so that makes the gay marriage fight a worthwhile fight. The actual legal argument for gay marriage is pretty silly – the right to marriage as it’s always been understood is to marry an individual of the opposite sex, not somebody of the same sex or multiple people of whatever sex, so arguing that we’ve somehow discovered a fundamental, universal right here is a a legal fiction, to put it politely, but the pedigree of our arguments really shouldn’t matter so much. This argument is as good as it gets for attacking the right’s cultural hegemony because if the right actually is an individual right to marry anybody of your choosing at all, there’s no good argument against polygamy or any other right we want to claim. The number "2" is just as silly, stupid and arbitrary a choice as "man + woman" or "of the same race." it’s not my cup of tea but the more we can expand individual rights and the more we can attack whatever the wingers feel they need to defend, including this damned corrupt, failed and oppressive culture, then the free-er we’ll be. As Justice Kennedy made really clear in Lawrence, morality can *never* be a rational basis for state action.
Xenocrates
Perhaps the solution is to "…erect a barrier or [sic] protection around religious institutions." and then lock each and every one of these nutjobs in them. Paging the "ACORN Strike Force"??
Justin
If he is admitting that marriage is a religious institution then the state (the government) shouldn’t be involved in it at all and the state should only give civil union licenses and let the churches decide if they’re going to marry someone religiously or not.
steve s
Indeed, the only reason gay marriage hasn’t already won is that people 55-75 vote in the highest rates. When the people who are my age (32) and younger are in the majority, bigots like Dreher will have lost the battle decisively.
Hey, Rod–the people in the 50’s and 60’s who argued that niggers shouldn’t be allowed to marry white women…that’s you, right now.
Peter Principle
Am I just not understanding the new codespeak for the religious right?
It’s not particularly new. The notion that providing equal rights to gays violates their religious right to live in an repressed, intolerant Judeo-Christian society has been around for a while.
RobNYNY1957
The full faith and credit clause does apply to marriages, but has historically been subject to the public policy exception. As a general rule, a marriage that is valid where it is entered into must presumptively be honored by other states. However, if the reason for the purported invalidity is so serious as to violate the other state’s public policy, the marriage may be invalidated, for example, for polygamy, cosanguinity, etc. What is a violation of public policy? Whatever a judge says it is, but usually something pretty serious. However, something that is a constitutional right in one state is harder to construe as a violation of public policy in another state. I think at this point it would be extremely unusual for any legal heterosexual marriage from any state to be criminalized or invalidated by another state. Of course, there have been unwritten gay exceptions to a lot of laws, but they are getting to be fewer and fewer as time goes by.
RobNYNY1957
It should be noted that in 2007, a federal appeals court overturned Oklahoma’s law that barred recognition of same-sex adoptions from other states under the full faith and credit clause. Finstuen v. Crutcher.
http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/06/06-6213.pdf
Persia
@Jon H:
For that matter, I don’t understand why businesses say "You want to give me money, but no way!"
But maybe that’s why I don’t work for myself.
CaptainVideo
"It is an untenable situation for a same-sex couple to be married in Vermont and Massachusetts and Iowa, but not in Texas, Nevada and Montana."
I thought conservatives were in favor of states’ rights.
norbizness
If you just taken the simple step of not reading Dreher, these 220 (now 221) comments would not be in captivity.
Jon H
@Persia: "For that matter, I don’t understand why businesses say "You want to give me money, but no way!""
Yeah, I know. I mean, I could see it if the photographer was fielding an inquiry from someone wanting to host a scat porn photo shoot, but a commitment ceremony?
scarshapedstar
@Comrade Dread:
That’s still got nothing to do with a church. I just don’t see how churches enter into the equation, ever.
Zuzu's Petals
@MikeJ:
The operative term here being "same sex marriage."
After all, states are permitted to regulate marriage in all sorts of ways (age, familial relationship, etc.) that are not perceived as an impermissible infringement. So the question – a question – is how the federal courts will see regulating marriage on the basis of sex or sexual orientation.
This is not to say the matter could not be decided simply on the basis of a discriminatory classification.
Ecks
@Justin: Marriage is not a religious institution. Not religious people can get married too. She might want to "admit" that it is, but this is not an admission, it is an unwelcome claim that she is staking.
Sister Machine Gun of Mild Harmony
I know the meme about churches being forced to provide gay marraiges does need to be killed, because some people are pushing that line. Not Dreher, though. He is more worried about individual Christians and their businesses being forced to recognize, provide services and provide benefits for gay married couples. He has posted stories about the clash between Christians and gay couples. A photographer really did get sued because he didn’t want to work and this lesbian couples wedding and told them he had a problem with gay marraige.
I’m a lesbian. If a photographer hadn’t wanted to shoot my wedding, I would have just walked away, and given the business to someone else. Some people will sue, however. What he is talking about is making sure the law allows him to remain a bigot without facing nasty legal consequences.
Houston Bridges
Many churches rent their halls and sanctuaries as a very profitable enterprise. Operating a business is not a right, but a privilege and to take part in that privilege you agree to abide by the laws and regulations of the state which will include not discriminating on the basis of race, religion, sex and in some places, even sexual orientation, regardless your beliefs/opinions on the subject, religious or otherwise.
It’s their choice, really.
Jordan
He wants the right to continue thinking of, talking about, and discriminating against homosexuals as perverted faggots who G-d hates. He wants to make sure he won’t be called a bigot and a hater for being a bigot and a hater. That’s it. That’s all it is about. He sees the world changing around him, and recognizes that people no longer believe what he believes, and resents the world for changing him from a jocular gay-basher in a gay-bashing world to a backwards, hateful jackass in an era of tolerance and recognition that people who are different were made that way by the very G-d he claims to respect.
Richard Jasper
The right-wingers like to pretend that if gay marriage is allowed churches will be forced to marry gay couples. Ditto, that if laws discriminating against gay people (and there are still plenty on the books) are repealed the free speech rights of right-wingers will be infringed (because they won’t be able to say snarky things about gay people.)
All of which is a bunch of b.s., of course. No government agency in the U.S. can compel a church to perform a marriage ceremony, even if that couple has a marriage license. Churches routinely discriminate against the divorced, people of different faiths, people of different colors, and people they just plain don’t like, as is their right. Allowing couples of the same sex to obtain a marriage license in no way infringes upon that right.
Nor does the repeal / invalidation of discriminatory laws in any way infringe upon the free speech rights of anti-gay people, any more than they infringe on the free speech rights of people who are anti-woman, anti-Black, anti-Hispanic, anti-Arab, anti-Jewish, etc.
We can *hope* that the repeal / invalidation of discriminatory laws results in social pressure for people to give up their bigotry but history has shown that can take a very long time, if ever.
Opponents of gay marriage know all this, of course, they’re just using whatever tool comes to hand, no matter how silly or irrational that tool might be, in order to prop up their prejudice. In other words, they’re employing fundamentally the same tactics used throughout U.S. history when one group wanted to discriminate against a minority.
What else is new?
Best regards…
Richard Jasper
East Amherst, NY
maek
Re the state issuing civul union certificates only – that’s highly unlikely to happen. Opponents (and there will be many, not all of the straight) won’t want to lose the word ‘marriage’ to something so sterile-sounding as ‘civil union.’ The problem isn’t what the license is called. The problem is that this country ever allowed clergy to sign off on marriage licenses. If all marriage certificates were processed through the courthouse or county clerk’s office, etc, without the ability of a pastor, priest, rabbi, imam, to actually complete the process, signing and mailing in the certificate, a lot of air would be let out of this balloon. We made the mistake of coupling civil marriage with religion and it’s one of the central problems with this debate. If we’d treated churches all along as places to have weddings and not marriages, the lines would be much clearer.
Chuck
I like Dreher’s blog even though he is a certifiable nutcase. His problem is that he does not realize that no one with more than three brain cells takes anything he says seriously.
I mean, does he have any idea what it takes to pass a constitutional amendment? Where is he going to get 67 votes in the Senate and if more than a third of the states legalize gay marriage…
Well, you see my point.
Phil
The absurdity of the idea that the government can somehow compel a church to perform a marriage aside, what I really find offensive about this argument is its extreme narcissism.
All of these conservative Christians are so convinced that gay people want their approval, that gays are dying to be married in their churches. Does it even occur to them that their "approval" is irrelevant, that no one has the least interest in getting married in their (extremely tacky imho) churches, and no one is interested in joining their congregations?
It would be as if gays said to the Religious Right that the "real" purpose of their political agenda is to force their way into the best gay bars in NYC and San Francisco.
Like Jon Stewart said to Jim Cramer: This song isn’t about you!
Phil
It is also dogwhistle language when they insist that they government is going to outlaw preaching against homosexuality. They know very well that nation which allows the KKK to have parades in Manhattan is not going to censor the speech of Christian ministers in their own churches.
What they really mean is that once government support for discrimination is withdrawn public opinion will change and they will be viewed by most people as no different than the KKK or neo-nazis. They will legally be allowed to spew homophobia, but effectively constrained by social taboo. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but you dont have a right for that opinion to be popular.
Look how Rick Warren has disavowed his support for prop 8 and downplayed stopping gay marriage. He wants to be "America’s Pastor" and be able to say he was ont he side of the angels in twenty years. Wether you buy his bs or not, its obvious that he sees the writing ont he wall.
Jim McCrea
Rod and his ilk have a constant fallback then they are losing:
When in wonder, when in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout.
coyote
The thing that drives me nuts about this is that my church wants to be allowed to marry gay couples. (The Unitarian Universalists, btw.) The so-called ‘freedom of religion’ crowd wants to put restrictions on my freedom of religion. Bastards.
PhoenixRising
@Jon H:
Yeah, they’re whiners. And stupid. Not to say they didn’t have a case, clearly they are right legally; but doesn’t it strike you as odd to pursue your hurt feelings over an email with such ferocity?
They were lucky enough to find a lawyer who was equally stupid about the politics. One assumes that she failed to even Google the straight Christian photographers, whose family name is pretty obscure, which would have told her that they are prominent local wingnuts.
So stupid met entitled and they gave birth to this highly useful anecdote to support the lies about how dangerous marriage equality is.
Good job, defenders of freedom!
Tonal Crow
@Houston Bridges: Yep. To the extent a church is a church, it can be as bigoted as it pleases. To the extent that it is a business, it’s got to obey the law, just like any other business.