THE RELIGION GUY ASKS:<\/p>\n
With the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s mandate to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, what\u2019s ahead for religious believers in traditional man-and-woman marriage alone? (The Guy poses this timely topic now in place of the usual question posted by an online reader<\/em>.)<\/p>\n THE ANSWER:<\/p>\n The historic June 26 legalization, by a one-vote majority of a deeply divided Supreme Court, demonstrates with stark clarity religion\u2019s declining influence and stature in American culture.<\/p>\n The one aspect is obvious. Traditional marriage belief is firmly taught, with no immediate prospect of change, by the Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention, most other evangelical Protestants, many \u201chistorically black\u201d Protestant churches, conservatives within \u201cmainline\u201d Protestant denominations, Eastern Orthodoxy, Latter-day Saints, Orthodox Judaism, Islam, and others. A massive 2014 Pew Research survey indicates those groups encompass the majority of Americans, something like 140 million adults.<\/p>\n Of course, not all parishioners agree with official doctrine. In a May poll by Pew, the 57 percent of all Americans supporting gay and lesbian marriages tracked closely with the 56 percent among those identifying as Catholic. That contrasted with only 41 percent of black Americans and 27 percent in the nation\u2019s biggest religious bloc, white evangelicals.<\/p>\n The less-noticed aspect is the weakness of religions on the\u00a0triumphant side, which generally followed the LGBT movement rather than exercising decisive leadership, unlike past church\u00a0crusades that helped win independence from Britain, abolition of slavery, labor rights, child welfare, social safety nets, women\u2019s vote, alcohol prohibition, civil rights laws, or withdrawal from Vietnam.<\/p>\n The three major faith groups prominent in pressing change in civil law did so rather recently, the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1996, Reform Judaism in 1997, and the United Church of Christ in 2005. Even \u201cmainline\u201d denominations that endorse clergy with gay partners have been hesitant in redefining religious marriage. The Presbyterian Church (USA) did so just this year. The Episcopal Church authorized\u00a0same-sex weddings days after the Court\u2019s ruling.\u00a0 The Evangelical Lutheran Church in American remains ambivalent. (The United Methodist Church, though also \u201cmainline,\u201d has defeated liberal bids for 43 years; the next showdown occurs in May, 2016).<\/p>\n The Supreme Court\u2019s ruling stirred important secular debates about discerning new rights in a \u201cliving Constitution\u201d versus the \u201coriginal intent\u201d of the Constitution\u2019s literal text, and whether in a democracy federal judges or legislators and voters should determine social policies. But the overriding question now becomes how much the marriage equality right the 2015 Court found implicit\u00a0in the Constitution\u2019s 14th Amendment will overrule the explicit First Amendment right\u00a0 to \u201cfree exercise\u201d of religion guaranteed since 1791. Liberals will renew efforts to outlaw discrimination against gays and lesbians at the federal, state, and local levels, while traditionalists seek exemptions, creating ever new clashes between the rights. A \u201cFirst Amendment Defense Act,\u201d introduced June 17 by 75 House and Senate Republicans, would bar federal discrimination against religious opponents of same-sex marriage in tax exemption, penalties, and benefits. And Alliance Defending Freeedom offers a 40-page \u201cProtecting Your Ministry\u201d booklet with tips to prevent future legal challenges.<\/p>\n The Court\u2019s majority and minority opinions could hardly avoid this problem, considering ongoing conflicts and the urgent pleas in religious briefs filed in this case. In 2008, Marc Stern, now general counsel of the American Jewish Committee, noted such\u00a0legal and administrative disputes in 311 footnotes for an article in \u201cSame-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty\u201d (Rowman & Littlefield). Justice Kennedy\u2019s opinion for the 5-member majority sought to calm anxieties: \u201cThe First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach\u201d\u00a0 marriage\u00a0traditionalism and engage in \u201copen and searching debate.\u201d<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t good enough for the 4 minority justices who joined a vigorous dissent written by Chief Justice Roberts. Because the Court\u2019s ruling didn\u2019t mention \u201cexercise\u201d of religion, he stated, believers \u201ccan take no comfort in the treatment they receive\u201d in Kennedy\u2019s ruling.\u00a0 Justice Thomas saw \u201cpotentially ruinous consequences for religious liberty.\u201d And Justice Alito warned that those who now dissent publicly \u201cwill risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.\u201d Conservatives fear that would-be president Hillary Clinton\u2019s references to \u201cfreedom of worship\u201d rather than \u201cof religion\u201d mean limits to faith-based activities outside church walls.<\/p>\n In the legal mop-up\u00a0during coming years, most analysts agree, government won\u2019t force churches to perform same-sex weddings or hire actively gay clergy. But Notre Dame Constitutional scholar Patrick Deneen sees insistence by proponents of\u00a0 marriage redefinition\u00a0\u201cthat all dissent be silenced \u2014 whether through threats of economic destruction, legal bludgeoning\u201d or\u00a0government power.\u00a0Recent crackdowns involved religious objectors who sell wedding services to the public (florists, bakers, caterers). Roberts raised the sample\u00a0issues of married student housing at religious campuses, religious adoption agencies, and tax exemption for religious groups. Other flashpoints may include certification of counselors and other professionals,\u00a0college accreditation and admissions, freedoms for conservative campus clubs, hiring choices of secular businesses, and employment discrimination by \u201cparachurch\u201d ministries.<\/p>\n Loss of tax exemption would be the most threatening, and\u00a0in the oral argument the Obama Administration\u2019s solicitor general acknowledged \u201cit\u2019s certainly going to be an issue.\u201d That\u2019s a reasonable deduction from the Court\u2019s 1983 decision that the IRS could strip tax exemption from Bob Jones University because its (now discarded) rule against interracial dating did not fit \u201cthe public interest.\u201d The same could certainly be argued with the newly nationalized marriage law. Indeed, New York Times religion columnist Mark Oppenheimer now\u00a0believes \u201cit\u2019s time to abolish, or greatly diminish,\u201d tax exemption for groups that disagree with \u201csettled public policy\u201d on sexuality.<\/p>\n Sidelights:<\/p>\n \u2014 The chief justice said \u201cit is striking how much of the majority\u2019s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage\u201d and the winning side didn\u2019t point to any difference. The Court\u2019s ink was barely dry before a Ph.D. essayist at politico.com said liberals\u2019 next cause should be \u201clegal recognition of group marriages\u201d because, as with gay marriage, monogamy-only is mostly \u201canimated by purely irrational fears and prejudice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Significantly, the response from 118 evangelical leaders not only opposed the ruling and urged religious liberty protections but advocated respect for government authorities, love toward those who disagree, and the belief that LGBT persons \u201care created in the image of God and deserve dignity and respect\u201d: http:\/\/erlc.com\/erlc\/herewestand.<\/p>\n Texts of the Supreme Court majority and minority opinions: www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/14pdf\/14-556_3204.pdf.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE RELIGION GUY ASKS: With the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s mandate to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, what\u2019s ahead for religious believers in traditional man-and-woman marriage alone? (The Guy poses this timely topic now in place of the usual question posted by an online reader.) THE ANSWER: The historic June 26 legalization, by a one-vote majority of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n