Words are inadequate

I particularly like this bit from the second post:

The religious freedom issue is significant. For example: what would be wrong with a federal law that prohibited the ordination of women? Many religions, including Catholicism, the Southern Baptist Convention, and most conservative evangelical denominations, believe that ordination is a sacred status that pertains only to men. [snip]...If that seems like an obvious example of the federal government infringing on some people's religious rights in order to enforce other people's religious rights - and I hope that it does - you are left with the need to explain why some religious denominations' opposition to gay marriage trumps other denominations' support.

I had never put these to issues in the same bucket - but they belong together. Women cannot be discriminated against: they must be allowed to hold the same jobs, get the same pay as men - except in the church. Churches cannot tell the government to keep women out of certain jobs, and the government can't tell churches to allow women in other jobs.

Same with gay marriage. Churches should not be able to tell the government the definition of what legal marriage is, and the government should not be able to tell churches what the definition of sacred marriage is.

I was totally on board, but it's never been quite so well defined for me before. Thank you for this link.