How Marriage Equality Doesn't Affect You, Religiously.

I know that there are lots of people with feelings about SCOTUS decision to legalize Marriage Equality.

Someone on facebook by the name of Jessica Mathews said it better than I could, so here is their post, with my thoughts after:

"I say this with sincere love to my many friends who are passionate fundamentalist Christians who believe that the SCOTUS’s decision yesterday on marriage equality is an abomination to themselves and to God: As a lawyer, I need to attempt to set the record straight.

Our country was created by our founding fathers very deliberately to prevent the establishment of a national religion from our governance. The Church - Catholic or Anglican - was central to almost every other country in the world historically, especially England from which our founding fathers separated. It was critical to our founding fathers that one central religion NOT be declared and NOT be incorporated into our Constitution or governance. They understood that an establishment of a national religion would ultimately abridge the very rights they believed were fundamental and were meant to be recognized and protected by the Bill of Rights and ultimately the Constitution.

Religion-based loss of basic rights had been their experience in England and they wanted to prevent that here.

The fact is that this decision yesterday was a LEGAL decision about the scope of our Constitutional rights as humans and US citizens. It was not about religion, religious beliefs or religious freedom. It is about equal rights, just as the decisions to give women the vote and the decision to abolish slavery were about equal rights.

Rights are not and should not be up for a popular vote or up to the states to determine. Rights are absolute and cannot be dependent upon anything other than the fact that the person is a human being and is a citizen of the US. If those two conditions are met, YOUR belief system about what is MORALLY or spiritually right or wrong does not matter and should not. You should be glad that is the case, because it would be just as easy for another religion to take over and curtail your rights as a Christian (something that has happened throughout history).

In fact, one religious party believing they know the truth for all humans is how terrible oppression starts - that is how Naziism started, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the Klu Klux Klan, Al-Qaeda and now ISIS - the most destructive, hateful, murderous periods of human history have arisen directly out of one religious group (ironically, most of these examples were lead by Christians) believing their religion and religious beliefs were THE truth, and therefore they had the right to take away the rights (and lives) of those who lived or believed differently than them.

Our founding fathers wanted to prevent that outcome. So does our current Supreme Court. THAT is the law of the land and I could not be more grateful to be an American than when human rights are protected. I don’t have to agree with you to believe with all my heart and soul that YOUR rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should be protected against oppression or prejudice. LGBT US citizens deserve exactly the same treatment. God Bless America.

p.s. Those railing against the decision of marriage equality as a basic constitutional right are confusing the idea of constitutional (i.e human) rights with certain types of behavior (the stuff they call "sin"). But human rights are inherent in all human beings and US citizens - not doled out based on who is behaving "well" and who isn't. All US citizens should have the equal right to pursue life, liberty and happiness, regardless of the "sins" they commit. The only behavior that should curtail your constitutional rights is if you commit a crime (a felony) and are convicted. But even then, criminals can still marry, have kids, own property, work and live in our communities. The only things they can't do is vote and carry firearms. If committing a sin was a barrier to receiving basic constitutional rights in this country, we would all be in big trouble, not just the LGBT community."

In contrast to the legal breakdown above and the opinions associated with it, I will say this. Nowhere in any of the decision to pass marriage equality did SCOTUS infringe upon each and every religion's right to CHOOSE which marriage ceremonies to perform.

No religion will be forced to perform ceremonies they would not already be performing. There are some Christian sects, and other religions that do practice same sex marriage as well as heterosexual marriage, and these would be the options for people who want a religious ceremony to seek out.

Just as I could not try to have a traditional Jewish wedding as a non-Jewish person, I could not go to the Catholic, Mormon, or Muslim church, or temple, or synagogue and ask for them to perform a same sex marriage or union.

There is no risk to your religion by granting me the same legal FEDERAL rights that you are entitled to, and if you want to argue that NO one should have those Federal rights that is a different argument entirely.  No one is going to be pounding on the doors of the church and demanding that their marriage be performed in that chapel if the religion forbids that union. This is the epitome of separation of church and state.

I can now legally do what I have already done once, and go find somewhere, anywhere and have a ceremony celebrating the union of two people and forming a legal bond. I went to a Justice of the Peace when I married the first time. I will be seeking a consenting Christian church to perform my second wedding ceremony. My fiance and I both highly respect and wish to have the Christian ceremony if we can. However we will not be asking anyone who would not be allowed or willing to perform this ceremony either in the UK or the US.

If that means that I get married by a civil servant who writes us some nice vows throwing in appropriate respectful scriptures about living a good clean life and respecting your spouse and potential family then that is what we will do.

It would be illegal for the United States Government to demand ANY church of any religion to perform these unions and I am 100% in agreement with that. I fully support the right of everyone to live by their beliefs and I would not ask any religious leader to do something out of bounds like that.

I'm probably speaking in circles and if I am, I apologize. I just wanted to make it clear that while I am so very very happy to finally have equal rights in this, I want my loved ones to rest easy knowing that their religious freedom is safe. This is still the USA, and Religious Freedom is still a very big deal.