Same-sex ‘marriage’ and religious freedoms
Sunday, July 13th, 2008Same-sex ‘marriage’ and religious freedoms (OneNewsNow.com)
The Family Research Council (FRC) hosted a panel discussion Thursday on the California Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing homosexual “marriage.” That panel included a homosexual law professor who supports the ruling.
FRC organized the event to examine how the decision will affect religious freedoms. Panel member Kevin “Seamus” Hasson with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty did not take a position for or against homosexual “marriage.”
“This is not an issue courts should be in the business of imposing,” said Hasson. “This is an issue that, if you’re going to do it right, you’re going to have to take into account the religious liberty conscience — the conscientious objections — of lots and lots of people.”
Therefore California, he argued, will have to find a way to respect the beliefs of millions of its citizens who believe that homosexuality is immoral. He drew an example from American history. “The American tradition is that Quakers, who were about two percent of the colonies, didn’t have to show up when the militia mustered — and two percent of a town of 50 or two percent of a town of 20 makes a big difference,” said Hasson.
“They, in the old days, paid a very high price for the conscientious rights of very small numbers of people,” the Beckett Fund founder and president continued. “In this case, it’s the conscientious rights of a much larger number of people, and the implications are profound for this larger number of people.”
Hasson said religious believers’ objections to homosexual marriage must be accommodated both because it is the American tradition and because it is the morally right thing to do.
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Georgetown University Law Center professor Chai Feldblum is a lesbian activist who agrees with the ruling, but also believes elected lawmakers should handle issues of religious accommodation. “That is the courts’ job, to tell me whether I am being denied my ‘equal protection,’” she stated. “But once that decision is made, I do think that it’s legitimate for the legislature to grapple with these questions and figure out how to accommodate each of those interests.”
But Benjamin Bull, chief counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), said the homosexual activists who pressured the court to legalize homosexual marriage believe there should be no accommodation for people who oppose it on religious grounds. In fact, Bull said that his legal group has heard from three California churches that now feel pressure to perform same-sex weddings that would violate their faith. And county officials, he said, are being told they must facilitate same-sex marriages regardless of their beliefs.
“The folks that we’re tangling with, the leaders of this movement, do not believe in free speech,” said the ADF attorney. “They don’t believe in right of conscience. They don’t believe in any sort of expression…or religious expression that conflicts in any way, shape, or form with what they want to do or the world they want to shape.”
Unless Christians are willing to fight for their First Amendment rights, said Bull, homosexual activists will use the California decision as a battering ram to drive religious opposition to their lifestyle out of the public square.
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Tags: Christian, family values, religious freedoms, Same-sex
