#LoveWins from Freedom to Marry (video Sunday)

Nobody's memories (video Sunday)

From PFLAG Canada:

#Howwefamily (Video Sunday)

Directed by Dustin Lance Black, of Milk fame, this is a Tylenol project.

A surprise proposal (video )

Voices of Faith: Episcopal Church makes marriage official

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Voices of Faith

Meeting in its triennial General Convention last week, the US Episcopal Church voted on two resolutions. One made the marriage liturgy equally accessible to straight and gay couples, and the other modified the canons in agreement (essentially the church rules). Previously, a special trial liturgy was used for gay couples on a case by case basis, but now they are equal.

Out gay bishop Gene Robinson reflects on how the Episcopalians got there. 

While the resolutions passed overwhelmingly, there's a small handful of dioceses whose bishops disagree, and they are able to refuse permission to marry LGBT people.  However, they must provide some access to marriage.  Whether this is a phone number to a neighboring diocese, or the ability to import a priest, or ecumenical strategies with the Lutherans (the ELCA and The Episcopal Church are in communion with each other), remains to be seen.

Still, it's great news as the Episcopalians join other churches including Lutheran and Presbyterian in allowing same sex marriages.  Or as we can now call it, marriage!

A brief history of how we got here

This excellent article in the Atlantic tells the whole story, starting with a man named Baker....

When Wolfson was a law student at Harvard in 1983, his adviser tried to discourage him from writing his thesis on gay marriage, on the grounds that it was too far-fetched. Sullivan’s 1989 New Republic essay, “Here Comes the Groom,” got a similar reception. “It was difficult just to get past the laugh factor at the beginning,” Sullivan recalled. “I remember going on Crossfire in the early days and having Gary Bauer laugh in my face—‘It’s the most bizarre and silly idea to come down the pike in a long time! It’s ludicrous!’”

and then, how the message changed after the cluster of the Prop8 campaign, as the participating groups started to strategize together

There was stiff resistance within the movement to the new approach. Some thought it made no sense or wasn’t aggressive enough; some resented the strictly vetted, disciplined, sanitized faces the movement was putting forth. But in 2012, after 31 straight losses for gay marriage at the ballot box, Freedom to Marry spearheaded a centralized, politically savvy, message-tested campaign in four states—Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington. On Election Day, the gay-marriage side won in all four states.

Religious freedom and civil marriage

Several states are resisting implementation of the Court's decision on same sex marriages, by throwing up the "religious freedom" meme.

The most extreme example is this, in which a lawyer under Alabama Justice Roy Moore claims

Public officials are ministers of God assigned the duty of punishing the wicked and protecting the righteous.

Well, that's patently not true.  Alabama is NOT a theocracy and neither are these United States, and the oath to uphold the Constitution that they all took is not predicated on "when it agrees with my religious views."

In Michigan, efforts to protect "religious freedom" are renewed, including a demand that marriages only exist in religious settings.

Conservatives in the House have introduced legislation that would only allow religious clergy to perform marriage ceremonies and remove that responsibility from local clerks and judges. Other couples who don't want to use clergy for their nuptials could provide an affidavit of marriage to county clerks. The legislation also would allow marriage certificates to be shielded from public record laws.

"If this legislation becomes law it will protect our public officials from having to perform same-sex marriages and put the marriage licensing business back in the position of being in the realm of the churches and religious leaders," said state Rep. Todd Courser, R-Lapeer, in a statement explaining the bill he sponsored.

But that is putting religion front and center in a CIVIL contract.  That is WRONG.

In Texas, the Attorney General has suggested that clerks are free to refuse licenses on religious grounds.  The Dallas Morning News correctly states,

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have equal rights to marry. Top Texas leaders must stop standing in the way by encouraging government employees to invoke a personal religious exception when asked to provide marriage-related services, such as issuing licenses or officiating at civil ceremonies.

Denton County Clerk Juli Luke struck the right tone regarding Friday’s ruling by stating, “Personally, same-sex marriage is in contradiction to my faith and belief. … However, first and foremost, I took an oath on my family Bible to uphold the law, and as an elected public official, my personal belief cannot prevent me from issuing the licenses as required.”

Exactly.

State employees do not have discretion to selectively embrace the constitutional protections they agree with while rejecting those they object to, even on religious grounds. Constitutionally, governments — including their employees — must present themselves as religiously neutral. 

Look, this is not a religious issue.  Civil marriages are civil contracts.  I haven't noticed Roman Catholic clerks refusing licenses to previously divorced people, although such marriages are disallowed by their faith.  Nor devoutly orthodox Jews refusing licenses to interfaith couples.  This is only about bias against LGBT people.  And it needs to stop.