Related Posts: Gay Marriage Again; Gay Marriage; Gay Marriage: The Iowa Supreme Court; Idaho Test Oath; Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act (1862); Edmunds Act (1882); Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887); Blacks and the Priesthood
I would like to add a few more thoughts on the gay marriage issue.
One of the claims I made in my previous two posts is that many people see gay marriage as a civil rights issue, consequently they will have to go all the way with it, even to the point of threatening religious organizations fighting to preserve traditional marriage.
Most gay marriage activists are adamant that gay marriage won’t force the Mormon church, or any church, to recognize, solemnize or perform homosexual marriages. Many on the religious right don’t have faith in those assurances—neither do I. (For several examples of the tactics being used see this article by William A. Jacobson, Associate Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, NY.) In a debate on gay marriage, Lorrie L. Jean, attorney of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, made this chilling comment,
The real danger to religious freedom lies not in treating everyone equally under the law, but allowing any one religious belief to be imposed on everyone else. Thousands of religious leaders, churches and synagogues oppose Proposition 8 — and they would never do so if their own religious freedom was endangered. (A gay-marriage Pandora’s box?, Los Angles Times.)