Force religious ministers and registrars and
judges to perform same sex marriages regardless of their alleged conscientious
objections
Many gay people say their same-sex desires for sex and a relationship built up
around it is part of the fabric of their humanity. It is part of their identity.
If so, the state should be forced to permit and encourage same sex marriage.
All citizens need to be equal before the law as individuals. Nobody gets special
treatment because of their membership in a group. If religious people have a
right to believe gay people cannot truly marry, it does not follow that they
have the right to put this belief into practice. Religious freedom is an
important right but you are more than what religion you are a part of. You are a
human being. Human rights come first. Thus religious rights can never be an
excuse for denying human rights to others or removing their freedom.
If you give a religious group special rights, then why not give them to any
group? Why not give a Craft Group the right to make cards inciting to hatred
against LGBT people?
No religious groups alleged rights are fully respected by the law. For example,
Jewish might get the right to circumcise children but they do not get the right
to take more than one wife though their Bible makes polygamy a right. Catholics
are given the right to praise a man who rioted in the Temple but are not allowed
to riot in pharmacies to get the condoms taken away. Muslims are not given the
right to take pagan books from libraries and burn them. A religion's rights are
limited so why should a religion necessarily be allowed to deny same sex
marriage to a couple?
Religious people pay their religion to serve them. Thus religion should provide
same sex marriage for gay couples when it is funded by their money. When
religions take the money they give legal consent to put the wishes of the people
who contribute first. If most want same sex marriage then it should provide it.
Imposing secular values such as gay marriage on the Church denies its universality for it will exclude the majority in the Church who oppose such things. Theologians are correct that gay marriage undermines the catholicity of the Church. But that is not our concern. Who cares?
The Roman Catholic Church portrays marriage as a
sacrament between a man and a woman only and for life. While another
religion might see marriage as a contract the Catholic Church says it is
something more important than that. It follows then that the Church sees
forcing a religion that views marriage as non-sacramental to conduct same sex
weddings as better than forcing the Catholic Church! The Church will say
marriage is a sacrament and does not belong to her but to God so the state
cannot meddle with it. If Catholicism is man-made and there is no
doubt that it is when you consider how it fed off hate for centuries -
Protestants were only "forgiven" relatively recently then the sacraments are not
sacraments but placeboes and DO belong to man.
The Roman Catholic Church forces annulments on people. Those people see their
marriage declared a fiction against their will. It cannot complain if it is
forced to do gay marriage.
The main reason why religion cannot be allowed to discriminate when a same sex
couple comes to it for marriage is that its refusal is no better than racism and
nobody thinks racism should ever be tolerated.
A religion that weds a couple who it knows is making a terrible mistake - eg
maybe the man is a misogynistic monster - and then refuses to wed a committed
loving gay couple
When anybody solemnises marriage as a representative of the state it has no
right to refuse anybody who is legally entitled. A religion then stands in the
place of the state.
Purely religious weddings that are not recognised by law are not weddings. True
marriage gives civil rights.
Religious rights cannot come before gay rights. Religion is a choice and based
on belief. Gay rights are based on what a gay person is. The right to same sex
marriage comes before the right of a religion to refuse it.
The Church has no problem with lawyers being forced to defend and lie for the
vilest of criminals. It then has no business pretending it is too loyal to
consider forcing its ministers to do same sex weddings. The faithful believer
has no problem approving and supporting a hypocritical religious and political
system that tells lawyers who know they are defending evil monsters and trying
to get them off the hook to condone the evil and tell themselves that the
monsters are good people. After all, a good lawyer has to believe his or her own
lies to be convincing and to convince others. Christianity does not really
believe in freedom of conscience and virtue except when it suits its prejudices.
A good lawyer aims to have witnesses under oath trip up so that it looks like
they lied under oath. He does not care if they really did but just cares that it
looks like they did. Also, he will take on the case when he feels that the
accused has a reasonable chance of talking her or his way out of trouble.
To permit a religion to refuse to wed a same sex couple on conscientious grounds
is saying, "Heterosexual marriage should get more protection than gay marriage.
Discrimination against same sex couples is tolerable though wrong."
Marriage is a restriction on your rights before the law. You give up some rights
in order to commit to another person. It is not true that one sex couples by
seeking to marry are looking for special rights. They only want the same
opportunities as anybody else has.
Stupid people think that because something is good it has to be Christian. But every religion has something bad in it even if it is just silly or unsubstantiated historical claims. If banning same sex marriage is unChristian then there is no religious freedom entitlement for a Christian to refuse to do it.