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But you do have to bake their cake, or be shut down. There's your slippery slope.
Now that this has passed, that frivolous stuff will likely fade away. All money is green, baby, and if you choose not to accept it, well, good luck with that business plan.
Personally, if I were a florist, pastry chef, or wedding planner, I'd thank my lucky stars for those often wealthy ( no kids), flamboyant ( spendy ) customers coming my way.
The state is taking sides when it calls it a marriage. I am perfectly fine with them using the term civil union.
No, it's not. The state is merely acknowledging that marriage as a civil institution exists, as it has for much longer than these United States have existed. In fact - contrary to what the propagandists endlessly claim - for much of the past thousand years marriage ordinarily did not involve the clergy at all and was, in fact, a civil matter.
Just what do you think common law marriages are? Here's a hint - common law dates back to well before Columbus. That you want the state to pretend this ubiquitous social institution does not exist because it gets your undies in a bunch when they acknowledge variations of it that you don't like, that's your problem and no one else's.
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Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I was never opposed to legally recognizing civil unions of gay people, and as far as I am concerned it's a marriage in my system of beliefs. However, it shouldn't be defined as "marriage" by the State.
Sure, you're all for civil unions. Show me a single post in your six years here where you've called for federal recognition of civil unions as marriages so the myriad federal benefits of marriage would flow to those in civil unions. Show me a single post where you called for the cessation of federal marriage benefits.
Well?
Exactly. You never have.
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The very term "marriage" is too loaded. Every religion had very specific definitions of what's marriage. The government should not use this term. Imagine that government would start writing laws using such words as "sin" or "salvation". Wouldn't you think they've overstepped the boundary ?
You can pretend all you want that marriage is not a civil issue all you want. You're still wrong. The fact that some religions make a big deal out of it is irrelevant. Lots of religions make the drinking of wine a religious rite, yet the state sells wine (I just bought a bottle last week from my local municipal - that means city-owned) liquor store. And I don't see any communion-takers all bent over that.
Basically, you're being ridiculous. What you need is to get over yourself.
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And how will you react if - or rather when - the State will go after the religious organizations that refuse to see a union between people of the same gender as a marriage ?
That won't happen, which anyone who isn't utterly ignorant of the law knows. And here's why. Has that happened in Massachusetts, which legalized same-sex marriage 11 years ago? No. Has it happened in any of the other dozens of states that had legalized same-sex marriage before today? No. You doomsayers conveniently ignore that churches are free to decline to perform/recognize all sorts of marriages protected by the Constitution. Interracial marriages? Churches don't have to perform them. Interfaith marriages? Churches don't have to perform them. Catholic churches generally decline to perform marriages between Christians and non-Christians. Many Rabbis refuse to marry a Jew to a non-Jew. And it's all perfectly legal, and none of the past Supreme Court rulings protecting the rights of individuals to marry who they want to marry have ever been used to compel churches to marry those they did not want to marry. Claims to the contrary are just more ignorant and/or disingenuous alarmism.
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Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
So you want to force a marriage acceptance on me, while you shut down the freedoms of those who want to not recognize that same marriage? Who are you to force your beliefs on me when no ones rights have been violated.
Allowing gays to marriage forces nothing on you in the same way that your right to worship your disgustingly bigoted faith forces nothing on the rest of us. If you were forced to marry someone of the same gender, you'd have a point - but you're not, so your claim is merely laughable.
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Meet the new Jim Crow.
Uh huh. Allowing gays to marrying is just like denying blacks the vote, forcing them to the back of the bus and into crappy underfunded schools, and periodically lynching them.
You must have complete and utter contempt for everyone who ever suffered under Jim Crow to make such a shameless analogy as that.
Can we PLEASE get on with the real issues facing this country?
Yes like all those "privileged" people and all the darned racists running around! This has only "sort of" been resolved, sadly court cases will still flow over the matter for some time to come...
So you want to force a marriage acceptance on me, while you shut down the freedoms of those who want to not recognize that same marriage? Who are you to force your beliefs on me when no ones rights have been violated.
No one gives a red hot damn if YOU accept a gay marriage. Just as long as the GOVERNMENT recognizes it.
I remember interviewing for an investigator position in the Texas government where one of the questions asked of me was, "Have you ever done anything that if it came to light, would embarrass the Secretary or the Governor?".
Well, after today, I don't think I could ever do anything that would exceed the actions of today.
I can't see how this decision is really legally sound. They constitution clearly doesn't say anything about same-sex marriage. It does set a bad precedent; but then again, judges have pretty much had extensive latitude to interpret the constitution however they wish, regardless of what it actually says.
Nevertheless, I certainly won't lie and say I'm upset by the ruling. I most certainly am not the least bit upset, lol.
Define "toleration" please. Would a church be able to refuse to recognize a union of two gay people as "marriage" and still retain it's tax exempt status as a religious organization ?
What the Supreme Court said is that government officials cannot observe genders differently with regard to marriage. Just as with everything else, it has nothing to do with what private entities do.
Church tax exemption does not rest on acting as though it were a government entity. Notice that the Boy Scouts of America is not and has never been in danger of losing its tax exemption.
No, I wasn't fine with gay marriage ban either. I don't want the state to legally define any terms that in my opinion describe beliefs. Neither by banning them nor by endorsing them.
I see.
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Originally Posted by Ummagumma
Define "toleration" please. Would a church be able to refuse to recognize a union of two gay people as "marriage" and still retain it's tax exempt status as a religious organization ?
Toleration means you put up with something. If a church refused to recognize a gay marriage (whatever that would entail, right now I can't think of what it would be, what, refusing to let a gay couple play bingo?) then they must accept the consequences, whatever those might be, if any are even enacted (as I understand it the Court's decision has not made Gays a protected class). That's OK by me, a little hardship is good for religions, too many exist to provide more comfort for the comfortable and more contempt for the miserable.
I'm happy because my niece and her partner got married today!
Those still opposed can suck it.
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