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Originally Posted by McMurphy I suppose that is a fair distinction to make: religious marriages and civil unions. I don't believe it would be within a State's proper framework of power to force religious institutions to perform ceremonies they do not believe in. Seperation of Church and State goes both ways, afterall. |
I don't think that this really plays into it, honestly. Different religious bodies, and different individual clergypersons decline to marry traditional couples for a variety of reasons, and the law doesn't stand in the way of that. In other words, just because it is legal for a man and a woman to marry, that does not require any church or clergyperson to perform a marriage ceremony for any couple that requests it. For example, many churches require a couple to undergo a certain period of time or number of sessions of pre-marriage (sometimes called Pre-Cana) counseling sessions before they will perform the ceremony. There really isn't any way, I don't think, that anyone could be forced to perform a religious wedding for any reason.
But a civil marriage, performed by a judge or a justice of the peace, is just as much a marriage in the eyes of the law as a religious wedding is. And the anti-gay marriage amendments prohibit those as well. And that is where civil rights problems arise.