*swoon*

[jazzfish]

Dr rivka FTW. Twice, even.

I think it's entirely reasonable for religious organizations to be able to declare that gay marriage isn't marriage by their definition - that they won't perform those marriages in their churches, and won't recognize those couples as being married in the eyes of the church. I don't agree with that point of view, but I consider it to be up to the members of those denominations.

What is not reasonable, in my mind, is for religious denominations to say that it would somehow be injurious to their faith if my friends Charles and Glen, who have been together for nearly thirty years, could share health benefits and have widowers' rights to each other's Social Security benefits. When you claim that your religious rights are infringed upon unless rights are withheld from other people, that's where you've lost me.

Comments

on coveting another man's ass

[jonny-law.livejournal.com]

If I may play the God's Advocate for a moment, the issue is not religious freedom but separation of church and state. Unless it's buried in the Federal Code there is no formal "separation of church and state" at the federal level, which means Christian religion and US government exist in a strained balance. America was created by people belonging to the Christian tradition, which has shaped its laws and Constitution even if Christianity cannot be established as the state religion.

Some Christian tenets form the basis of laws, such as it being illegal to commit murder or perjury. For other religious tenets it is tolerable for either moral acts not to be illegal or immoral acts not to be legal. For instance, it is tolerable that it is not illegal to blaspheme or dishonor your parents, as long as these acts are not specifically protected by law. However, it is not tolerable when either moral acts are made illegal or immoral acts are made legal. At that point America becomes an apostate nation, and the faithful must enact changes in the government. This is why it is valuable to define a fetus as a baby, because then protecting a woman's right to choose to have an abortion is the apostate government endorsing the commission of murder.

If "homosexual acts" are a sin then the government recognizing gay marriage or, gay unions that convey all the rights of marriage, is the same as government endorsing that sin. For some it might be made worse that the government it conveying all the legal protections accorded to the sacrament of marriage to a sinful act.

In summary, the issue of gay marriage is about creating a separation of church and state. If America passes laws that make acts that are moral according to Christian tenets illegal, or laws that protect immoral acts, then America has become an apostate nation. Therefore, legally recognizing gay marriage is about rejecting the current co-mingling of government and religion, not about protecting anyone's 1st amendment religious freedoms.