Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Religious Freedom v. Marriage Equality

How many times have you heard religious people claim that marriage equality infringes on their religious freedom, well this is another story about that. In South Carolina it is against the law to perform a marriage without a license and the churches are saying that they should be able to marry a couple in a religious ceremony in their church without a license.
Religious Liberty Hypocrisy: North Carolina Forbids Churches From Performing Gay Weddings
Slate
By Mark Joseph Stern
April 28, 2014

On Monday, the United Church of Christ brought a federal lawsuit against North Carolina’s marriage laws, which were amended in 2012 to ban gay unions. What interest does the United Church of Christ have in toppling the state’s homophobic ban? Under North Carolina law, a minister who officiates a marriage ceremony between a couple with no valid marriage license is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor and can be thrown in jail for 45 days. And since gay marriage is illegal in North Carolina, that means any minister who dares celebrate a gay union in his church may face jail time.
I think that this law suit points out the hypocrisy of Republican lawmaker who are passing laws denying marriage equality on the grounds of religious freedom and at the same time passing laws prohibiting churches from marrying couples of their faith.

Look at all the marriage equality or non-discrimination laws and they all have clauses that exempt religious institutions from the laws, but now the Republicans passing laws to prevent churches from marrying people in their religious institutions.

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