You\u2019d think the answer to the issue of the clash between religious freedom and equal treatment, when it comes to services related to gay weddings, would be easy to solve: \u00a0allow people to claim religious exemption from providing services for gay weddings or commitment ceremonies, so long as this doesn\u2019t hinder the ability of same-sex brides\/grooms to find providers in their local area. \u00a0If you\u2019re one of many florists in town, then your rejection of floral arrangements for a gay wedding doesn\u2019t cause any meaningful harm for the couple; if you have a monopoly on flower-arranging in your part of the state, then it\u2019s a different story.<\/p>\n
Seems reasonable, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
But the reality is that the so-called \u201cmarriage equality\u201d crowd won\u2019t sign on to this compromise.<\/p>\n
Ross Douthat, in his column for the New York Times<\/a>, poses the question (phrased as multiple questions): \u00a0should any accommodation be made for those who believe that same-sex marriage is a sin, or, at any rate, not a true marriage as ordained by God? \u00a0Or should measures be taken to compel the acceptance of SSM by all, up to and including removal of tax-exemption for churches which don\u2019t perform these ceremonies? \u00a0Unfortunately, he only received 8 comments, so his column doesn\u2019t really offer a read of the pulse of NYT readers on the topic.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s another NYT columnist, David Brooks<\/a>, calling more vaguely for everyone to be nice to each other:<\/p>\n if there is no attempt to balance religious liberty and civil rights, the cause of gay rights will be associated with coercion, not liberation. Some people have lost their jobs for expressing opposition to gay marriage. There are too many stories like the Oregon bakery that may have to pay a $150,000 fine because it preferred not to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony. A movement that stands for tolerance does not want to be on the side of a government that compels a photographer who is an evangelical Christian to shoot a same-sex wedding that he would rather avoid.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Comments include the accusation that \u201cthe law, as it was written for Indiana, is but a hair\u2019s breadth away from the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s The Atlantic<\/a>, on the Indiana law: \u00a0fundamentally, they say, what has them upset about the law is that it expands religious freedom protections to for-profit entities (e.g., florists, photographers) and it has wording in there that would enable it to apply to situations where an individual is suing another with respect to refusal to provide services. \u00a0(Side note: \u00a0apparently the RFRA laws as constructed in most states don\u2019t provide protection against nondiscrimination laws; for instance, the case of the wedding photographer in New Mexico, there was a RFRA law on the books that the judge deemed inapplicable.) \u00a0Now, there are 10,000+ comments on this article, which means that you\u2019ll have to just trust me that the portion of the comments I read the other day consisted of commenters asserting that, indeed, if a Christian is unwilling to provide wedding services to gay people, they should be put out of business \u2014 and I\u2019ve read plenty of similar comments in the past, on other articles on the topic. \u00a0What\u2019s more, in at least one case, the New Mexico wedding photographer, the couple was acting as \u201ctesters\u201d specifically to identify whether she was willing to photograph a lesbian ceremony; it was unrelated to their ability to find a provider.<\/p>\n I had written previously<\/a> that providing services for gay marriages is quite different than the discrimination that blacks faced historically: \u00a0the key differences being that, in the latter case, discrimination was so widespread and so clearly affected the ability of blacks to reach economic and social equality with whites, and that, in the former case, the opposition to gay marriage is connected to a wider religious belief about marriage, not simply animosity towards gays and lesbians.<\/p>\n But it is clear to me after an accumulation of reading that \u201cmarriage equality\u201d activists see these situations as identical, and believe that traditional Christians have no more right to oppose gay marriage, or same-sex relationships in general, than racists have to oppose equal treatment of blacks. \u00a0Not a legal right, and not a moral right, and they deserve to be put out of business, fired, and, in any case shamed as not fit for decent society.<\/p>\n And so far, they seem to be getting their way, so much so that Indiana\u2019s Mike Pence is now hurridly rushing in to announce<\/a>, after announcements of boycotts, that, no, nothing in this law will protect businesses from being compelled to provide services for gay weddings, and they\u2019ll amend it to be sure that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, activists are now announcing that the Indiana law will allow businesses of all kinds to refuse to serve gays; for instance, The New Republic<\/a> (which makes the disingenuous argument that wedding-service providers are protected by the First Amendment, ignoring court cases that have ruled against them). \u00a0It\u2019s hard to believe that they actually think so, and much more believable that they\u2019re using any means necessary in their fight.<\/p>\n So what do you do?<\/p>\n Thinking about this some more:<\/p>\n I don\u2019t have an answer. \u00a0All I can offer is this: \u00a0if we,\u00a0those of us\u00a0who believe that marriage is a sacrament and fundamentally about providing a mother, a father, and a stable environment for children, want to have any hope of preserving that belief, we have to understand that activists for gay marriage believe, and have persuaded much of society to believe, that opposition to them is equivalent, legally and morally, to racism. \u00a0That\u2019s the mindset we\u2019re up against.<\/p>\n UPDATE:<\/p>\n