I’ve been thinking about the group-but-not-individual exemption in Connecticut’s and Vermont’s gay-marriage bills. How would that apply, for example, to a Christian rock band? They’re certainly a “religious organization,” right? Does that mean that a Christian rock solo artist could be forced to work at a same-sex wedding, but if she threatens to bring a drummer, she’s exempt?
What’s the deal with that?
I found a comment at BoxTurtleBulletin I wanted to comment on. “Kristie” said, in part:
Whether “marriage” was ordained by God or not isn’t the point and that is something opponents of marriage equality don’t seem to get. They have the right to their religious beliefs but they don’t have the right to foist those beliefs on every other citizen of this country.
I bring you this comment because it represents something supporters “of marriage equality don’t seem to get.”
Nobody on my side of the debate is trying to force “opposite marriage” on gays and lesbians in a theocratic way. We’re doing it in a democratic way - using our one vote apiece and our freedoms of speech, the press, petition, and assembly to support public policies consistent with our values.
Gays and lesbians do the same.
Then, our votes get added up, mostly through our representatives, and public policies are determined. What else would gays and lesbians have us do? Vote and speak out using your values instead of ours? Not vote or use our First Amendment expression rights at all?
Or are you saying we can take any position we want as long as it’s not based on the Bible? Leaving aside that Barack Obama disagrees with you, how are we to regulate rules about where positions can come from? Right now, Americans can make political choices based on family tradition, what Jon Stewart said on TV last night, their horoscope, or flipping a coin. Why is the Bible not allowed to be part of that list?
Or, if you’re saying that we’re allowed to use the Bible to determine our political stances, but we’re wrong to want to use the Bible to do so, well, duh. I think you’re wrong for NOT using the Bible to determine your political stance. So? We determine who’s right and who’s wrong through the democratic system. Or is there some other system you’d propose?
I have a piece in today’s Buffalo News on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” that’s scheduled for Monday’s Philadelphia Daily News in a slightly different version. A shorter piece appears as a letter to the editor in the International Herald Tribune. An excerpt:
While gays and lesbians are clearly capable of heroic service, heroism is not enough to merit serving in the military, which is a privilege, not a right. The military has legitimate concerns about unit cohesion, morale, good order and discipline that it must explore thoroughly before introducing openly gay individuals into our troops.
But there is another way. I propose that Congress repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for non-combat jobs immediately, and then consider extending the change to combat positions in five years, after the initial repeal has been tested….
Indeed, the push to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is just one manifestation of what I like to call Equality Mania, the attitude by gays and lesbians that nothing is more important than complete and total equality — not the welfare of children, not religious freedom, not even national security.
But equality isn’t everything. There is literally nothing more important than a strong military. While I’m sympathetic to gays and lesbians who want to serve their country, Obama and Gates are right that we have to be very careful before making a change that can hurt the only mission to fight and win wars.
More evidence that the gay-marriage debate is not entirely black and white. Ari, one-half of a matched set of “hitched” female “queer vegan artists and activists,” liked my piece in the New York Daily News:
So, I kind of can’t believe this, but I agree with an article in the New York Daily News. And it’s called In Vermont gay marriage law, a hidden victory for religious freedom. At first I saw that headline and thought, oh damn, there’s some loophole that will make it legal for the Pope to eat gay newlyweds. Or something else similarly creepy and oppressive. But it’s actually really sensible: Author David Benkof is happy that the new legislation in Vermont specifically provides an out to any religious groups that have issues with same-sex marriage: They don’t have to provide gay couples who are getting married with goods and services.
I’m totally okay with that. This is not a pharmacist denying the morning-after pill to an unintentionally pregnant teen. This is not life-threatening, and it’s not violating some “first do no harm” mandate. This is just reason to choose a different florist, one who doesn’t believe you’re going to hell.
Why force people to do things they feel are wrong? I care deeply about peace, justice and sustainability - so I don’t take design work that promotes zoos, “happy meat,” sweatshop labor, and other things I find objectionable. People make decisions like this all the time, don’t they? So why, as the author of this article points out, was eHarmony forced to create a queer dating site, if they found queerness so odious that they wouldn’t allow same-sex searches on their primary, heteronormative dating site? And why would any gay folks actually use the new site by eHarmony? Why not go to any one of the many, many sites out there run by and for queer people who love queer people? If we force everyone to provide services to everyone, aren’t we losing the usefulness of the niche audience - the self-selecting community? Personally, I like patronizing those I can stand behind ethically. And not everyone has my ethics.
When Shira and I got hitched, we paid our favorite vegan restaurant to cater it. We rented space from a progressive, arty Brooklyn hangout. We’re not into organized, hierarchical religion, so instead of hiring an officiant to approve of our union, we asked everyone in the room to marry us with a toast to fun and love. And so on. In short, we made it our own. We made it something we could believe in, something we loved.
I just can’t imagine how much it would have sucked if we’d hired people who think our love is an abomination - and how much worse it would have been to then pay lawyers to sue them, if they didn’t do what we wanted. Aren’t weddings supposed to be about love? I think Vermont has figured this one out, and I bet their efforts will make this legislation very hard to challenge: Everyone wins.
I wrote what appears to be the first piece anywhere highlighting the Vermont Clause I blogged about earlier in the New York Daily News (online) today. An excerpt:
…the Vermont Clause certainly could go farther. I would like to see protections for individuals - not just organizations. Still, it’s a vast improvement over the other states that have implemented gay marriage without concern for its repercussions on the traditionally religious.
Without serious religious freedom guarantees, disturbing punishments have been meted out to people and groups who have acted consistent with their belief that marriage is between a man and a woman and that children are best served with both a mother and a father….
Being forced to perform a medical procedure or take photographs when you don’t want to smacks of involuntary servitude. Why do organizations like “Freedom to Marry” feel that gay freedom has to be won on the backs of other people’s lack of freedom to work or not work based on their beliefs?
If some states are going to have gay marriage, people like me need to be protected if we choose to continue to behave as if the definition of marriage that we think comes from God is correct, rather than that of the gay and lesbian community - and the government.
It’s not a coincidence that the first real protections for religious organizations in a gay marriage state came in the first place to implement same-sex marriage by legislative action rather than judicial fiat. The legislative process usually involves compromise, and the need to get a majority often leads to amendments that incorporate each side’s concerns.
The courts in Massachusetts, California, Connecticut and Iowa, however, have implemented same-sex marriage unilaterally, with dissenting voices relegated to, well, the dissents. It’s much healthier for our democracy to deal with its most heated issues in the legislative arena rather than in the courts.
Ideally, we would have federal legislation guaranteeing individual conscience rights when it comes to marriage. Barring that, conservative lawmakers ought to push for strong “Vermont clauses” in all future gay marriage legislation.
With all the Green Mountain State’s double-bride and double-groom celebrations, nobody has seemed to notice that the Vermont gay-marriage law contains a clause offering some of the same protections I’ve been calling for here at GaysDefendMarriage.com:
§ 4502. PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS
* * *
(l) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a religious organization,
association, or society, or any nonprofit institution or organization operated,
supervised, or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious organization,
association, or society, shall not be required to provide services,
accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges to an individual if
the request for such services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or
privileges is related to the solemnization of a marriage or celebration of a
marriage. Any refusal to provide services, accommodations, advantages,
facilities, goods, or privileges in accordance with this subsection shall not
create any civil claim or cause of action. This subsection shall not be
construed to limit a religious organization, association, or society, or any
nonprofit institution or organization operated, supervised, or controlled by or
in conjunction with a religious organization from selectively providing
services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges to some
individuals with respect to the solemnization or celebration of a marriage but
not to others.
The pro-gay-marriage lawsuit was occasioned by Iowa’s version of the Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman. The court used the lawsuit as an occasion not only to overturn Iowa’s DOMA, but to rewrite all state statutes limiting marriage to male-female couples.
Which makes me wonder - if there never was an Iowa DOMA, would the Iowa Supreme Court not have had a chance to implement gay marriage, at least not right away?