Rod Dreher pens an extraordinarily provocative article on same-sex marriage (SSM) and how those who oppose it should focus their efforts going forward, now that three states have legalized the practice. Dreher assumes this is only the beginning: SSM will someday be the law of the land. Instead, he argues: “SSM opponents would do well to abandon the fight against SSM, and instead focus on the threat SSM poses to religious liberty — this, while there is still the prospect of energizing a majority of people to protect religious liberty.” That’s his third point, and his most provocative. Here’s an excerpt:
Though it is repeatedly, even hysterically, denied by SSM proponents, SSM is a clear threat to religious liberty. It is virtually impossible to argue about this with SSM backers, because they insist religious liberty begins and ends with preachers being able to voice opposition to homosexuality, and having the right to refuse to marry gay couples in their houses of worship. This is a straw man, and always has been. The thing to read is this 2006 piece surveying prominent legal scholars, including some who favor SSM, explaining why there is an irresolvable clash between gay civil rights and religious liberty. Something’s got to give.
Nobody, least of all journalists, wants to hear it, but the clash is built into our legal framework. Marriage touches all kinds of laws. Anthony Picarello, general counsel of the Becket Fund For Religious Liberty (which defends religious liberty cases involving all religions) said of same-sex marriage:
“The impact will be severe and pervasive,” Picarello says flatly. “This is going to affect every aspect of church-state relations.” Recent years, he predicts, will be looked back on as a time of relative peace between church and state, one where people had the luxury of litigating cases about things like the Ten Commandments in courthouses. In times of relative peace, says Picarello, people don’t even notice that “the church is surrounded on all sides by the state; that church and state butt up against each other. The boundaries are usually peaceful, so it’s easy sometimes to forget they are there. But because marriage affects just about every area of the law, gay marriage is going to create a point of conflict at every point around the perimeter.”
Read the whole thing.
HT: Denny Burk