RE: Ministers Threatened with Jail/Fines For Refusing to Officiate at Gay Weddings
October 23, 2014 at 8:29 pm
(This post was last modified: October 23, 2014 at 8:36 pm by bennyboy.)
I'm with the theist on this one.
The service this chapel (even if it's legally registered as a for-profit business)provides is clearly not only about filling out paperwork: it is providing an EXPERIENCE or THEME-- the experience of being married in an environment compatible with the believers of a particular religion. You can't go to an amusement park which advertises the experience of riding roller coasters, and demand that they provide the experience of water slides; you don't get to say that they are discriminating against those looking for the experence of waterslides, because they never intended to build their business on that theme.
If you are talking about officially eliminating religion in the US, okay-- have that talk. But enforcing civil liberties by legislating the behavior of religious businesses surely has to be seen as self-contradictroy. Since there are plenty of non-religious institutions capable of performing a legal marriage, there's really no good reason to force religious institutions to perform that role for any particular couple.
The service this chapel (even if it's legally registered as a for-profit business)provides is clearly not only about filling out paperwork: it is providing an EXPERIENCE or THEME-- the experience of being married in an environment compatible with the believers of a particular religion. You can't go to an amusement park which advertises the experience of riding roller coasters, and demand that they provide the experience of water slides; you don't get to say that they are discriminating against those looking for the experence of waterslides, because they never intended to build their business on that theme.
If you are talking about officially eliminating religion in the US, okay-- have that talk. But enforcing civil liberties by legislating the behavior of religious businesses surely has to be seen as self-contradictroy. Since there are plenty of non-religious institutions capable of performing a legal marriage, there's really no good reason to force religious institutions to perform that role for any particular couple.
