Gay Marriage Does NOT Squash Religious Freedom

The Baptist Press is disseminating more disingenuous untruths about the interplay between same-sex marriage and religious freedom. Not surprisingly, the ultra-homophobic Baptist Press claims that gay marriage would limit religious freedom. In point of fact, that is the exact opposite of the truth, but since the "conservative" takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, the truth has seldom mattered to the SBC or its mouthpiece the Baptist Press. Also, as is all too typical, the Baptist Press claims to cite "legal experts" who in fact are generally anything but and in frequently went to whacked out, non-ABA accredited religious affiliated law schools (which means they cannot even sit for the bar exam in most states), work for Christianist groups where ideology trumps legal scholarship, and make their livelihood working to further an anti-gay jihad. The Baptist Press apparently believes that its readers are such ignorant morons that they will swallow the bogus preaching hook line and sinker.

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The truth of the matter is that it is restrictions and prohibitions against gay marriage that subvert religious freedom since such laws and constitutional provisions are based on one particular intolerant religious belief. The First Amendment provides in part:

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, . . .

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I and many others, including some religious denominations such as the Unitarians believe that freedom of religion includes the right to marry the person of one's choice regardless of that person's gender. Under the First Amendment, my right includes not being bound by the religious views of others or some denomination to which I do not belong. None of the laws and Court rulings that have granted gay marriage or same sex civil unions require anyone to get married or enter a union not of their choice. On the other hand anti-gay marriage laws - including Virginia's "Marriage Amendment" enacted in 2006 - deprive me of my free exercise of my religious beliefs on marriage and bar me from having a CIVIL law marriage. The real agenda of the Baptist Press and other Christianist organizations and publications is to inflict THEIR intolerant religious views on all. In short, their propaganda is a lie. Here's a sample of the deliberately untrue bullshit the Baptist Press is circulating (NOTE: Matt Staver - the dean of the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University Law School - is an extreme homophobe and has made a career for nearly two decades out of attacking gays and seeking to limit our legal civil rights):

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The goal of homosexual activists, Staver said, is to transform society so much that it views opponents of "gay marriage" in the same light it views racists."That's the agenda. It's always been the agenda," Staver said. "There is no question that if same-sex marriage becomes legal, that churches eventually will have their tax-exempt status threatened -- no question whatsoever. If churches today discriminate against race, they would not be able to have tax-exempt status today. If churches discriminate on the basis of same-sex marriage -- if it became legal -- then same-sex marriage becomes the equivalent of race, and churches would not be able to have tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage."

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Remember, we are talking about CIVIL marriage rights for gays. Thus, none of what Staver says is true. Unfortunately, neither he nor the Baptist Press care that it's untrue. It is after all , all about their rights trumping everyone else's rights. It always has been.