Back in 2013 I took on the argument that marriage was for procreation purposes in a blog post about why my late wife and I should not have been allowed to marry. So now that the gay marriage issue is behind us thanks to five Supreme Court justices who recognize, as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice," it's probably time to take on the next fight - the religious liberty argument. To start with, the scare tactic that clergy will be forced to perform gay marriages is complete nonsense. Clergy are not required to perform any wedding that is not in keeping with the tenants of their faith. Rabbies don't have to marry Catholics, priests don't have to marry couples who are not in good standing. The law does not oblige them to do any ceremony that is against their conscience.
So the argument boils down to whether civil servants can be obliged to perform ceremonies for gay couples and businesses obliged to provide goods and services. Both are fairly straight-forward arguments. Lets take the first: If I was an engineer working for a defense contractor and converted to the Quaker religion, could I expect my employer to keep paying me if I refused on the grounds of my pacifist faith to do any defense work? Would my employer be legally bound to keep me or could they fire me? I think the answer is obvious, I could be fired. The same is true of a civil servant whose job it is to perform weddings or issue marriage licenses. If they refuse on faith grounds to perform the job they were hired to do, they can be fired. If the task they were hired to do is so odious, they should find new employment and not expect the public to pay them for non-performance of their job.
As for businesses, if faith can be an excuse for not providing goods and services, where does it end? If my religion does not believe in mixed marriages (as is true of many), can I refuse to provide a wedding cake for the wedding of a Catholic and a Protestant? If your church bans interracial marriage, can I refuse? Can I refuse anyone not of my same religious faith? What can I refuse to sell on the grounds of faith, food, medicine? Can I refuse medical treatment? The implications of a faith based opt-out go well beyond a wedding cake for a gay marriage. If we don't want to go back to the days of Jim Crow, businesses must provide good and services to all regardless of race, ethnicity, creed or gender identity. Again, if that is personally odious, then sell your business or prepare to be run over by the steamroller of history just as the segregationists were in the 1960s.
Civil rights took a great leap forward this morning. About darn time.
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