Religion Rears Its Ugly Head in Maryland Marriage Debate

For a long time I have felt that in addition to making equal protection arguments in support of our right to civil equality, the LGBT community also needs to frame the debate in terms of religious freedom. Put simply, the Christianists and professional Christians are engaging in prohibited religious discrimination when they push for anti-gay laws and oppose CIVIL law marriage for same sex couples. They can try to dress up their anti-gay marriage arguments as much as they want, but it ultimately comes down to a case of trying to put lipstick on a pig and the pig is religious discrimination. A corollary of this arguments is that legislation depriving LGBT citizens of marriage equality, employment protections, etc., need to be struck down BOTH as a denial of equal protection rights AND as illegal religious discrimination. Rotund blow hard Antonin Scalia can argue that the founders did not contemplate equal protection for gays and/or women in writing the constitution, but they damn well understood the issue of religious freedom and the concept that citizens should not be penalized for not adhering to a particular set of faith beliefs. A recent set to between a Baltimore Sun columnist and Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller highlights the issue. Here are highlights from the Baltimore Sun op-ed column:
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Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, . . . . opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions. Why? He was quoted in this newspaper Tuesday, saying he believes the traditional definition of marriage — man and woman — "is blessed by God" and meant to further procreation. Blessed by God? That sounds distinctly like a religious belief expressed by some fundamentalist thumper; it's not exactly what you might expect from the Democratic leader of the Senate of perhaps the bluest state in the nation.
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[Miller] apparently thinks it's OK to openly state religious belief to support a position on state law — and so much for the principle of separation. One assumes Mr. Miller, who entered the bar in 1967, took a constitutional law course when he was a student at the University of Maryland School of Law, and he can probably recall Jefferson's references to "a wall of separation between church and state," and even a few Supreme Court decisions upholding the principle.
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That principle is central to the question of whether Maryland, or any state, should make legal all marriages between any two adults. The only argument against same-sex marriage is a religious one — and, therefore, no argument at all in a constitutional democracy where separation is cherished.
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[I]f we want government to stay out of religion, we need to keep religion out of government. That's a profoundly fundamental concept, deserving the protection of each branch of government and its leadership, in particular. So I don't know what Mr. Miller is doing invoking God here, except that it's so like him. He's had a long political career, and he continues to enjoy great power and betray the hubris of certainty about almost everything.