Conscience Protections And Religion

I've always had the belief that religious institutions have it as their "right" whether to gay marry or not to gay marry. The issue at stake here is the conference by the state (in this case, the States of the United States) of hundreds of rights on those individuals who are classified as "married."

But an interesting thing is happening here, or is about to happen in these states where gay-marry clouds and storms are gathering, and eventually across these "united" States. The Civil Rights Act of 1965 may just have to be revisited, for it bars ANY and ALL institutions, public and private (yeah, that means you, churches, synagogues and mosques), from discrimination based on race. Now that sexual orientation has been included in civil rights issues (for the most part, unless you're one of those tea-bagging types), this poses a problem for those photographers, caterers and wedding advisers (bitch, please!) whose consciences and religious convictions (bitch, please!) prevent them from helping out in the gay-marrying of others. Well, I suppose if you're Catholic this means you can refuse services to divorcees, no? Only that isn't happening. My thinking is evolving on this issue by the minute.

New Hampshirites, I suppose, will figure all this gay-marriage business out; they are, by and large, decent and compassionate people. I suppose also the idea of conscience protections is a distinctly American one, as the Washington Post suggests. I'm just not sure we should be going down this path, though. There is the public realm, there is the private realm, there is the "religious" realm. Yeah, religionists, you can have your segregation on Sunday mornings. Just don't impose your personal prejudices on the rest of us in the everyday dealings of commerce.

This is all going to be very messy and wind up in federal courts. The issue is clear to me, though. Florists cannot deny their business to gay-marriage ceremonies, period. That is rank discrimination, personal religious convictions be damned. The dime-store argument will be, and this I think is key: "Have you, Mr. Catholic Florist, ever given your services to a divorced person? ...No? But how do you know? ...You don't know? Well, then, wouldn't the fact that Ms. Malone is a divorcee bother you? I mean, you ARE a Catholic, and Catholics do object to divorce, no? This wouldn't bother you? Then on what grounds, Mr. Catholic Florist, would you refuse your services to Mr. and Mr. Jones?"

Open and shut, when you think about it.