Posted on 06/30/2015 10:09:23 AM PDT by xzins
Legal opinions vary widely on what the U.S. Supreme Court's mandate of nationwide same-sex marriage will mean for pastors and government officials authorized to perform weddings.
Some legal experts say government officials charged with performing weddings could lose their jobs for refusing to marry gay couples. But others believe both ministers and government officials likely will have freedom not to perform same-sex marriages that violate their religious convictions.
And some experts believe pastors who refuse to solemnize same-sex marriages could face government repercussions.
The court's majority opinion, written by Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, states that "religions" and "those who adhere to religious doctrines" may "continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered."
The ruling added, however, that the Constitution "does not permit the state to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex." There is no specific statement regarding who would be required by law to perform a same-sex wedding.
Dissents by both Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas criticized the majority's apparent disregard for religious liberty, noting that the majority defends religious individuals' right to advocate and teach their views without also protecting the right to live out those beliefs. Thomas, joined by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, said "the majority appears unmoved" by the "inevitability" that "individuals and churches [will be] confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sex couples."
Roberts, joined by Scalia and Thomas, wrote, "People of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today."
Scalia's dissent noted that "not a single evangelical Christian" had a say in the court's opinion, as none of the nine justices are evangelicals.
Mike Whitehead, an attorney in Kansas City, Mo., who has served on the staffs of two Southern Baptist Convention entities, told Baptist Press oral arguments in the cases known as Obergefell v. Hodges "made clear that the federal government position would be to require that public officials who are authorized to perform marriages must also perform same-sex marriages, regardless of an individual official's religious conscience. Conscientious objectors could face firing, fines or worse."
By surveying marriage statutes in five states -- Tennessee, Ohio, Texas, Wyoming and Rhode Island -- BP estimated that an average of at least 907 public officials per state are authorized to perform weddings. That figure excludes former public officials authorized by the statutes to perform weddings as well as clergy members, who are also referenced in the statutes.
If BP's estimate reflects the number of government employees authorized to solemnize marriages across all 50 states, tens of thousands of public officials could be compelled to marry gay couples if Whitehead's assessment is correct.
Public officials empowered to perform marriages, Whitehead said, may be able to refuse to perform any weddings, but an official who performs only heterosexual marriages likely will be declared in violation of the Constitution.
Whitehead cited events in North Carolina as a microcosm of what could happen across the nation. Last fall, the state's 670 magistrates received a memo from North Carolina's Administrative Office of the Courts stating that because a federal court had legalized gay marriage in the state, magistrates were required to perform same-sex weddings or face possible criminal prosecution.
At least six magistrates resigned rather than marry homosexual couples. Later, the state legislature passed a bill allowing magistrates to opt out of performing weddings altogether. Gay marriage advocates are challenging the law in court.
Gilbert Breedlove, a former magistrate in Swain County, N.C., who resigned rather than perform gay weddings, told BP other Christian officials should prepare to "respond in faith" to the Supreme Court's ruling even "if it takes resigning your commission."
Breedlove, pastor of an independent Baptist church in Bryson City, N.C., predicted Christian public officials generally will choose to resign rather than defy the law. But he acknowledged that some officials might "feel the Lord leading them to face criminal charges."
The North Carolina legislature's bill protecting magistrates' religious liberty was passed following Breedlove's resignation, and he said it is unlikely a magistrate position will open again.
Whitehead speculated that ministers also could face government pressure to perform same-sex weddings, with those who refuse to solemnize gay marriages losing the power to solemnize any marriage on behalf of the state. Church weddings, he said, could become merely religious ceremonies without meaning in the state's eyes.
"Secularists will try to avoid this constitutional crisis of religious freedom," Whitehead said, by "simply tell[ing] the minister, 'We're not going to force you to perform a marriage ... but we'll not permit you to do any marriages if you refuse to perform marriages between homosexual couples who are lawfully married under our state law.'"
David Smolin, a constitutional law professor at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law, does not believe pastors will face legal repercussions for performing only heterosexual weddings. He told BP standard interpretations of the Constitution and federal statutes establish a "zone of autonomy" around clergy that should protect their ability to perform state-recognized weddings without compromising their religious convictions.
Government officials with religious convictions against gay marriage, however, could face significant challenges, Smolin said.
If public officials "are in a position of usually solemnizing [marriages for] all takers who come to them that are eligible under state law," Smolin said, then refusing to marry a same-sex couple "might be a violation of their duties and subject them, and the state, to a discrimination lawsuit."
Among those particularly at risk of being forced to violate their religious convictions are Christians who work for government offices that issue marriage licenses, Smolin said. Religious schools and businesses may face penalties for refusing to acknowledge gay marriages in admissions, hiring and student housing, he said.
Christiana Holcomb, litigation counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, told BP it's possible that both clergy and government officials could maintain the right to perform weddings according to their religious convictions, though she stressed that the particulars of the Supreme Court's opinion need to be studied. Protections of religious liberty vary from state to state, she said, and states with Religious Freedom Restoration Acts protect freedom of conscience to a significant degree.
"Government officials do not forfeit all of their religious liberty protections simply by being employed by the state," Holcomb said. "... They have the freedom guaranteed to them by the First Amendment and hopefully state laws" to "only perform weddings that accord with their convictions."
Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, and a former SBC president, said at a press conference June 17 in Columbus, Ohio, that a justice of the peace in Dallas had already called him seeking advice on what to do if same-sex marriage was legalized. Graham expressed hope that public officials would be permitted to recuse themselves from performing weddings that violate their religious convictions, but he said Christian government workers must be prepared to stand for Christ regardless of the consequences.
"As a believer, if you are called upon ... you must obey God and not man, if it means giving up your role or facing penalties," said Graham, who, along with the other living SBC presidents elected since 1980, released a statement affirming the biblical definition of marriage as only between one man and one woman.
David Roach is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention's news service.
Modest proposal:
Allow states to REQUIRE that only federal judges perform homosexual weddings. They made this mess, let them live with it.
Gays wont’ have a problem finding people to perform their weddings.
The problem will be when they seek out, target, and harass a minister they KNOW objects.
"“Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.”
This is supposed to somehow protect the church. I do not think it will. I would think performing a ceremony of Holy Matrimony in Church that violates the core beliefs of that institution would be protected. The word of the day is that the government can not stop homosexuals from getting married, but does not compel any individual from performing a service that violates his/her beliefs for them to marry.
I tend to think that once sexual lifestyle choice is "protected" from "discrimination" the same as race or gender, then we may see some activist judges rule against churches like a cake maker.
Just because a service is legal, it does not compel anyone to perform it. In the end, this may end up being an extremely hollow victory.
A lot of money flows from religious entities into political coffers. If liberals attempt to punish churches who refuse to perform gay marriage aka the Catholic church, it is going to hit them right in their pocket books. I think most Americans recoil at the use of force against one person in order to do the bidding of another. We have fought wars over this value.
If you're talking about government officials (e.g., county clerks, justices of the peace), you're probably right. If you're talking about churches, you're wrong-- no one in the US has ever successfully sued a Catholic church for not performing a wedding where one of the spouses is divorced, and no one has ever sued an Orthodox Rabbi for not performing an interfaith wedding.
And you are not listening. I said, a church CANNOT turn down a couple to be married, based on skin color, and I daresay that said church would be sued and regulated into oblivion if they did. Now, this SCOTUS opinion in favor of deviant marriage has placed deviant sexual behavior on the SAME LEVEL as race - both are now "civil rights". Therefore, a church that turns down a deviant couple based on their deviant behavior, said church can now be sued and regulated into oblivion.
State Dept LGBT Speaker: We Don’t Want Gay Marriage; We Want No Marriage
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/381148/state-dept-lgbt-speaker-we-dont-want-gay-marriage-we-want-no-marriage-ian-tuttle
.
Polyamory Is Next, And I’m One Reason Why
.
From income-tax breaks to estate planning benefits to Social Security and insurance benefits to the right to make medical decisions for one’s spouse, there are all kinds of carrots dangled in front of Americans as rewards for getting hitched. Instead of putting unmarried individuals on equal footing with married people, the government has chosen to appease the masses by blessing another category of monogamous couples with the privileges of marriage—those of the same sex.
This is discrimination, plain and simple. It discriminates against single people who have no formal romantic relationships and a growing number of people who identify as polyamorous, who maintain multiple romantic relationships at once. The government has no business incentivizing any type of romantic or non-romantic behavior. It has no business rewarding us or penalizing us based on our relationship status.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/30/polyamory-is-next-and-im-one-reason-why/#disqus_thread
I doubt that. Courts have already ruled, in race-related discrimination cases, that an intent to discriminate need not be present or proven in order to prove racial discrimination. All he plaintiff has to prove is that there was an unequal outcome, "disparate impact."
E.g. if only 20% of the white applicants for fire dept. jobs are rejected, but 35% of black applicants are rejected,that's "actionable" discrimination right there, whether it was related to other criteria or not (e.g. school records, previous arrest record, test scores, physical exam/fitness results, etc.)
So if it "happens" that 100% of the gay couples who asked for marriage are denied marriage, then they can get you for discrimination even if there is no provable, expressed intent to discriminate.
Christians will be FORCED to perform ‘gay’ ceremonies, or lose their livelihoods, or their freedom. This is it, people. Persecution has come to America.
Discussion is futile. They are going to force Christians to choose between their faith and their job. There is no doubt about this. Soon.
...and that right there is the whole point of the exercise.
I'll bet you $1,000.00 you cannot find a case where a church in the U.S. was successfully sued for refusing to perform a wedding where the refusal was based on the church's religious beliefs.
Because it's a policy ruling on the issuing of a corporate tax status.
Roberts called a penalty a tax because the penalty is issued in a part of the tax code that literally says "these taxes are to be called penalties."
Now everyone is upset because SCOTUS just extended the application of the tax code at the section that says "these corporate tax liabilities are to be called marriage."
The country isn't being wrecked by liberals, but by conservatives who refuse to read what the law actually says and learn who it actually applies to. It's pathetic.
The examples you cited are correct:
no one in the US has ever successfully sued a Catholic church for not performing a wedding where one of the spouses is divorced
But the divorced are not a protected class
no one has ever sued an Orthodox Rabbi for not performing an interfaith wedding
Interfaith relationships are not protected classes.
Both of your examples, as your most recent statement (you cannot find a case where a church in the U.S. was successfully sued for refusing to perform a wedding where the refusal was based on the church's religious beliefs) are correct. HOWEVER:
Race / skin color = protected class, and now
Deviant sexual behavior = protected class
Thus far, I've not heard of any church that has turned someone away due to skin color. If they were to do so, they WOULD be sued and regulated into oblivion. Same now, with deviant marriage.
In plain words, you are entirely missing the point.
I think there are churches that refuse to marry interracial couples or bans interracial couples from membership. The ones I know of are independent Baptist.
Freegards
Not to mention where the Obama administration has tried such things, even the libs on the court have slapped him down. One case being brought over hiring practices in the private, religious school.
I am a member of an Independent Baptist congregation. We have a couple interracial families, one married by our pastor. Of course, I can't speak for other churches, but have any couples sued?
And deviant marriage was not a "civil right" until the other day. You guys keep references stuff that went the way of the do do bird after this SCOTUS opinion. Pre-opinion: Deviant marriage was NOT a "civil right". Now it is. That changes EVERYTHING.
It changes nothing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.