As long as you don’t tell them the reason, you can’t be penalized.
Maybe this will be the time for churches to stop marrying whoever walks through the door. Example: If you want to be married in our church, you both must be a members for at least a year. No living in sin. Must submit to marriage counseling.
Yes, I already agree with that. But, this will be a plant. “Out of their own household...”
I’m REALLY too busy ... go try the _____________ church down the street.
As of now pastors can refuse heterosexual weddings if they feel the union is un-Biblical. Like a believer with a non-believer, etc. In my church couples must submit to pre-marital counseling if they want a church wedding. Such could be an opportunity to speak the Good News of the Gospel to a while new audience.
Note: repost but relevant IMHO...
http://redneckoblogger.blogspot.com/
It seems to me that this is the prudent way forward.
Even if it were a 6-mo wait, it's hard to believe there are "rabble-rouser's" who will wait that long.
And who knows? If they were forced to submit to marriage classes and "pre-marriage" counseling, one or both might have a come-to-Jesus moment...
Yes.
A lot of couples use historic, picturesque, or lovely unusual chapels because they are not church-goers, have no home church, yet want a pretty church wedding.
If pastors would grow a spine and have some rules about whom they will “marry”, then they would not have to worry about being “set-up”.
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.