Religious Liberty and Gay Marriage

Unsurprisingly, the gay community is throwing a huge fit over the victory of Prop 8 (no mention of Prop 101 and Prop 2, though), and they're taking it out on the only minorities deserving of intolerance: Mormons and Utahns. According to AP, the advocates are calling for a boycott of Utah tourism and for investigations into the tax-exempt status of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. From the AP:

Utah's growing tourism industry and the star-studded Sundance Film Festival are being targeted for a boycott by bloggers, gay rights activists and others seeking to punish the Mormon church for its aggressive promotion of California's ban on gay marriage.

It could be a heavy price to pay. Tourism brings in $6 billion a year to Utah, with world-class skiing, a spectacular red rock country and the film festival founded by Robert Redford, among other popular tourist draws.

"At a fundamental level, the Utah Mormons crossed the line on this one," said gay rights activist John Aravosis, an influential blogger in Washington, D.C.

"They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards," he said. "You don't do that and get away with it."

In their fight to attain the rights they think they have, the gay marriage advocates have forgotten two very important actual rights: freedom of speech and religious liberty.

Enshrined in the First Amendment, free speech and religious liberty are a cornerstone to the foundation to our republic. Our ancestors fled religious persecution in England and soon after the mother country was at war with itself over religious and political matters. The Founding Fathers saw the stability of allowing people to believe in whatever faith they wished and it has done us well for 230 years. Free speech is inherent in the protection of religious freedoms.

Mormons weren't the only religious group involved with the pro-Prop 8 campaign, but their singling out is an example of what may happen when fanatical advocates get full reign on their causes. The calls for the revocation of the LDS's tax exempt status is based on a very lazy invocation of the separation of church and state. The advocates believe that because the Church encouraged its members to support Prop 8 means that the church violated that wildly cited, but rarely understood principle of our government. The separation of church and state is to prevent the church from becoming the state, as it so often did in medieval and Elizabethan times in Europe. The principle has nothing to do with preventing the faithful from getting in to political campaigns or from churches from encouraging their members to. The Mormons weren't stupid with their call. As far as I know, no church money ever went into Prop 8 coffers; even the leadership refused to donate. Mormon investment into Yes on Prop 8 was by individuals who had every legal right to donate or not to donate. There were even LDS members who were against Prop 8 and made sure the church knew it. If gay marriage advocates in their current form get their way in a court-friendly state, the tax exempt status of churches and the religious freedoms of its members may be in jeopardy.

I'm an atheist, but I am also an American. My views on God (or lack of a god) are irrelevant when it comes to violations of religious liberty and free speech by political zealots. I'd just as soon defend gays against the LDS if the LDS was attempting to silence them through the legal system. What people need to understand is that gay marriage is not a civil rights issues, as there is no civil right being violated as it was during Jim Crow. Marriage is a privilege regulated by the state as the state deems necessary for the public good. It is not having your right to vote blocked by a poll tax, or having cops force you out of a public area because you are black. This issues is an issue for each state to decide on its own and through its voting populace. Anything else would just fan the flames of the gay marriage zealotry and force the traditionalist and religious factions to entrench further.

That's the last thing we need.the last thing we need.

Cross-posted at Generation Patriot

Gay Marriage and Federalism

With gay marriage bans passing in three states (Prop 8 passing in California, Prop 102 in Arizona and Prop 2 in Florida), the issue of gay marriage seems to have taken a new turn. Surprisingly, California voters defied the California Supreme Court and overruled their ruling from earlier this year, even with the Governor supporting the decision. The question this and the other voter-backed propositions bring up is how are we to reconcile a very motivated gay movement with the will of the voters of 41 states? The answer has always been there: federalism.

The US Constitution gives the federal government certain powers and delegates all other powers to the states through the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. For the most part. social issues have been a state matter. Abortion and gay marriage have put major pressure on federalism and its advocates. Roe v Wade forced every state to allow abortion through a very expansive reading of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This reading has led to other expansive rulings like Kelo (making eminent domain no longer just a public need tool). California's own expansive reading of the Equal Protection Clause was the basis of the California Supreme Court's ruling making gay marriage legal. This precedent may be the basis of any gay marriage case taken to the Supreme Court. Other than the destruction of federalism, a SCOTUS ruling that forces gay marriage nationwide would ignite a new front in the culture war that already has some very nasty battles.

It may not make any gay marriage advocates happy, but federalism is the best way to get what they want. Focusing on more liberal/libertarian states would create havens for gay marriage, just as some states have more conservative/libertarian gun laws than other states. This is the beauty of federalism: a nation united, but as diverse as the Amazon jungle. Some states may have full and equal straight/gay marriage, some states may have separate-but-equal marriage/unions and some states may outright ban gay marriage. That's how it is.

Marriage isn't race. Anyone who equates the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s to gay marriage is making a false analogy. The oppression in the South during that time was in violation of the 14th Amendment. Marriage, unlike voting, is not a right, it's a privilege regulated and licensed by each state. As such, each state's voters, through their legislature, determine their social structure for which marriage is a part of. If a state wants to protect gay marriage, they need to amend their state's constitution through the legislature, not force it through judges that may forget what their job is.

I'm all for gay marriage. I think gay couples who wish to make the pledge of marriage and build a family should be allowed to, but not at the expense of the foundation of our nation's political structure. It's not worth giving a future president and/or congress unlimited powers through the courts because gays couldn't handle working within the framework that has created the most diverse, most stable nation on Earth.

Cross-posted at Generation Patriot