Same-Sex Marriage Temper Tantrums

It seems to me the objections to same-sex marriage are the political equivalent of temper tantrums, attention-getting yet extremely difficult to implement.

 

 

Similar to the result of states refusing to set up health insurance exchanges in accordance with the Affordable Care Act marriage would become the federal government's responsibility. Folks could stand in the corner and hold their breath until they turned blue in the face, they still signed up for Obamacare, but they had given the authority over it to the federal government. Pouting doesn't work.

 

 

Ignoring the fact that no gay couple is going to want someone who deeply opposes their union to consecrate it no civil authority could force a religious institution to perform a ceremony that the institution opposes. That will never happen since it would violate the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution — the part of the First Amendment that protects religious expression.  

 

 

Less obvious is whether that same protection applies to state employees like judges, clerks and justices of the peace who issue marriage licenses as part of their jobs. I doubt they will be protected since what they believe has no relevance to the completion of their official duties.

 

 

Government employees have obligations to perform their job. Rogue county clerks instructed to issue marriage licenses to any couple who asks for one, should be fired for refusing to perform the duties of their job.

 

 

Any couple who wants to have a fight will claim state-sanctioned discrimination. The state will say they're simply protecting the religious liberty of their employees, and the court will say you don't get to elevate employees' religious liberty over other constitutional requirements of their job.

 

 

Supporters of the decision have compared its significance to the landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, and the current pushback by anti-gay marriage states is not unlike that sparked by the court's mandate for desegregation. But while the time and effort involved in creating a whole new desegregated school system actually made it easier for states and cities to drag their feet in implementing the requirements following Brown, the simplicity of legalizing same-sex marriage makes it harder to resist.

 

 

Considering all of the problems this country has, so much energy put into same-marriage is a waste. Besides with their acceptance and tolerance for serial adultery and fornication Christians long ago lost the right to the moral high ground on any topic. Voting for or against an individual based on their stand on same-sex marriage just might explain the situation in which this country finds itself.