Rachel Held Evans nails it (Voices of Faith)

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Voices of Faith

Noted Evangelical Blogger, Rachel Held Evans, summarizes things nicely on her facebook page (Click to read the whole thing)

...Nothing about yesterday’s decision forces people with religious convictions against same-sex marriage to perform those marriages. That freedom is preserved, just as it remains totally legal for a church today to refuse to marry an interracial couple. Yesterday's ruling simply allows for those who do not share that same religious conviction to enjoy the same civil liberties that the rest of us enjoy. Furthermore, is it not a more serious violation of religious liberty to tell a same-sex couple whose religion allows for, and in fact celebrates, marriage that they cannot practice that religious conviction because some of their fellow citizens do not agree with their particular expression of it? Civil rights aren’t up to a vote. They aren’t up to public opinion. Civil rights are part of what it means to be an American citizen. ....

A great overview from CBS (Video )

If this doesn't embed, the link is here.

I just wish they had pointed out that although the opponents claim religion as the basis for their opposition, the majority of mainline Protestant denominations, and the Roman Catholic laity are vigorous supporters of marriage.  Opposition is NOT a "Christian" thing.

The National Anthem at SCOTUS on Decision Day (Video Sunday)

5-4 for equality. We win!

From the Opinion:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embod- ies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people be- come something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be con- demned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civiliza- tion’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.


It is so ordered.

Waiting....

Will tomorrow be the day?  The 26th has an auspicious history, and the Court has already announced that it will be releasing opinion(s) on Friday (usually only Mondays and Thursdays)

It was on June 26, 2003 that a divided Court said in Lawrence v. Texas that a Texas law making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in intimate sexual conduct was unconstitutional.

And on June 26, 2013, a divided Court in United States v. Windsor said that the Defense of Marriage Act (or DOMA) was unconstitutional as a “deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.”

Gay rights are human rights

Okay, it's a campaign video.... but it still made me tear up.

The March to Equality

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

Another advertising video.

Waiting for Obergefell

Obergefell v. Hodges is the case that will be in the history books, and the decision is expected within the next two weeks, and Jim Obergefell is waiting in line.

Arthur died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease) just three months after the two men married in Maryland in July 2013. They filed suit to try to force their home state of Ohio, where gay marriage is not legal, to recognize their out-of-state union by putting Obergefell's name on the eventual death certificate.

Though Obergefell, wearing a suit and tie in Washington, D.C.'s oppressive June humidity, was first in line – and empty-handed so that he could go straight for the front-row seats without stopping at a locker – his case was not one of the decisions released on Monday.

So, taking time off from his real-estate job back home, Obergefell will be back on Thursday. And again next Monday, and again and again every day the justices expect to issue decisions between now and when the court recesses June 30.

This is what we've been waiting for.  This is the end of the arc that I started with this blog back in 2009, with a challenge to Prop8 in the California Courts. 

It all comes down to this.

Religious liberty and marriage

From one of the amici briefs to the Supreme Court: my emphases

Significant religious liberty issues will  indeed  follow in the wake of same-sex civil marriage. But it  is not an appropriate response to prohibit same-sex  civil marriage in order to  eliminate every risk of  possible  impositions  on religious liberty.  No one can  have a right to deprive others of  their important  liberty as a prophylactic means of protecting his own.  Just as one’s right to extend an arm ends where  another’s nose begins, so each claim to liberty in our  system must be  defined in a way that is consistent  with the equal and sometimes conflicting liberty of  others. Religious liberty, properly interpreted and  enforced, can protect the right of religious organizations and religious believers to live their own lives  in accord ance with their faith. But it cannot give them  any right or power to deprive others of the corresponding right to live the most intimate portions of  their lives according to their own deepest values

It  goes on to argue for robust religious freedom exemptions.

Church and society should endorse same-sex marriage (Voices of Faith)

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Voices of Faith

From Lancaster Online:

I write as a 97-year-old retired Mennonite Christian pastor. ....

My wife and I believe the church must rise up and reclaim a godly and wholesome sexuality. A sexuality:

— That includes public vows of faithful love and is blessed within the church (not left to fend for itself outside the church).
— That calls everyone to commit our bodies and to respect the bodies of others (whether homosexual or heterosexual) as temples of the Holy Spirit.
— That is committed to a lifelong monogamous relationship.

We believe gay people should have the opportunity to create a Christian household within the blessing of a lifelong committed relationship. We want them to belong to a church and live a life with faith.

Last year, when the laws of Pennsylvania changed, I was happy to be invited to marry my son and his partner in a small private ceremony in their backyard. What a joy-filled day! I feel that my act of love in officiating this marriage was in line with those in the early church who learned to welcome outsiders into the family of God.

My prayer is that our church leaders will warmly invite into congregational fellowship and the joys of marriage those believers and nonbelievers who have suffered exclusion from our church. And I pray that the laws of our country will assign societal benefits of marriage to them as well.

Let us pray the Spirit of Christ will teach us all how to love and welcome the outcasts, as Jesus did.

Chester L. Wenger was a long-time Mennonite Church pastor and leader, who served as a missionary in Ethiopia for 17 years. The Lancaster Mennonite Conference terminated his credentials in 2014, after he officiated at the wedding of his gay son.

Mexico!

ABC News:

Mexico's supreme court has ruled it is unconstitutional for Mexican states to bar same-sex marriages.

But the court's ruling is considered a "jurisprudential thesis" and does not invalidate any state laws, meaning gay couples denied the right to wed would have to turn to the courts individually. Given the ruling, judges and courts would have to approve same-sex marriages....

Gay marriage is legal in some parts of Mexico, including Mexico City and the northern state of Coahuila.

The Court wrote,

"As the purpose of matrimony is not procreation, there is no justified reason that the matrimonial union be heterosexual, nor that it be stated as between only a man and only a woman. Such a statement turns out to be discriminatory in its mere expression."
Read more at http://www.bilerico.com/2015/06/mexico.php#TFdTOuxgibw1QPQT.99

The Sign for Love (video Sunday)

This sweet ad has the anti-equality gang in an uproar.

Opting out of Equality

From the New Yorker  (go read the whole thing)

In hindsight, no one doubts that allowing business owners to discriminate against black people during the Civil Rights era would have denied them full equality and hampered desegregation. (Arguably, the continued tolerance of discrimination by private clubs also undermines desegregation, though club membership is less essential to daily life than shopping.) Similarly, allowing private discrimination against gay couples is not an exemption from a new rule of full equality; it is a compromise that allows inequality to persist. Proposals to let magistrates withhold marriage licenses have the same problems, with the added insult that the discrimination is effectively coming from the state. If officials can decide not to implement laws they dislike, then equality under the law—for gay couples, at least —is just a slogan.

Yet another survey released

Must be survey season. PRRI (the Public Religion Research Institute) has come out with their survey.

Fifty-five percent of the public favors allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally, while 37% are opposed. Strong generational, religious, and partisan divisions persist on the issue.

and

Nearly seven in ten (69%) Americans favor laws that would protect LGBT individuals against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing, compared to 25% who oppose such policies.

 Meanwhile, the mini-RFRAs aren't too popular,

Six in ten (60%) Americans oppose allowing a small business owner to refuse products or services to gay and lesbian people, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs, while 34% support such a policy.

While majorities of most religious groups oppose these so-called “religious freedom” laws, white evangelical Protestants (51%) are the only religious group with majority support. Forty-two percent of white evangelical Protestants oppose allowing small businesses to refuse products or services to gay and lesbian people on religious grounds. By contrast, 59% of white mainline Protestants, 63% of non-white Protestants, and 64% of Catholics oppose allowing small business owners to refuse service to gay and lesbian people on religious grounds, as do nearly three-quarters (73%) of religiously unaffiliated Americans.

 The director states the obvious,

“As national opinion has shifted toward support for LGBT rights, including among religious Americans, white evangelical Protestants are increasingly becoming an island of opposition amidst a sea of acceptance,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute. “Today, white evangelical support remains below the level of support from a decade ago in the general public, and they are also less likely than other religious groups to acknowledge that LGBT Americans face discrimination.”

#takepride (video)

From Target, of all retailers.  You know, it's not just the edgy techy companies any more.  We've gone mainstream. 

New Pew Poll; Marriage equality "inevitable"

There's a new poll from Pew on marriage equality and it finds over 70% believe legal same sex marriage is "inevitable". The numbers are the same for Republicans who generally oppose, as for Democrats who generally favor.  Overall, 57% favor equality.  This is similar to other polls.

As support for same-sex marriage has increased, other attitudes about homosexuality have changed as well. Majorities now say homosexuality should be accepted by society (63%) and that the sexual orientation of a gay or lesbian person cannot be changed (60%). Nearly half (47%) say that people are born gay or lesbian. These opinions represent a shift over the past decade, even if in some cases the short-term changes have been modest.

In addition, a 54% majority says there is no conflict between their own religious beliefs and homosexuality, up from 48% in 2013. However, the view that homosexuality and one’s personal religious beliefs are in conflict remains a powerful factor in opposition to same-sex marriage.

An overwhelming majority of the public (88%) reports personally knowing someone who is gay or lesbian. That is little changed since 2013, but much higher than in the early 1990s.

Not surprisingly, the more likely you are to have gay friends, the higher your level of support.

And can we just stop with the falsehood that religion is opposed to equality?  It's a SUBSET of religion that is opposed.

Marriage Equality: Bring your Family with you (video Sunday)

GUAM!

The territory of Guam now has marriage equality.

Guam on Friday became the first US territory to recognise gay marriage, after a federal judge struck down the prohibition.

US district court chief judge Frances M Tydingco-Gatewood issued the decision after a hearing on Friday morning local time. It was scheduled to go into effect at 8am on Tuesday, when gay couples will be able begin applying for marriage licenses, the Pacific Daily News reported.