Marriage Fight Turns to Religion
Posted: May 15, 2011.
Print: Wall Street Journal
excerpt:
Senate Republicans who say they are undecided about their stance on gay marriage are pushing for more assurances of legal protections for Catholic charities and other religious institutions that refuse to recognize same-sex couples.
The Republican concerns suggest a shift in the debate toward the wording of legislation and the extent to which religious safeguards are explicitly spelled out in statute. The same questions about religious freedom have flared in other statehouses that ultimately adopted same-sex marriage laws with provisions to insulate religious groups and their services from legal exposure.
...Proposed marriage bills in Albany have stated that no clergyman or minister would be forced to solemnize a same-sex union. And New York’s human-rights law, which makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation with respect to housing and employment, includes an exemption to protect the “religious principles” of church-affiliated charities.
...“While we will always oppose redefining marriage, a key side issue is protecting our religious liberty and the religious liberty of individuals,” Dennis Poust, a spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, the policy arm of New York Catholic bishops.
I fail to see how exemptions to protect “religious principles” are any more justifiable than those to protect the “principles” of the KKK w/r/t African Americans and Jews.
posted on May 16, 2011report this as inappropriate
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