Honesty About The Future

The Seattle Post Intelligencer, of all places, has an editorial about what the legal institution of the practice known to its proponents as "gay marriage" will mean to religious freedom:

Champagne corks have been popping wherever gays and lesbians gather throughout the Golden State after the California Supreme Court's ruling in In Re Marriage Cases, which opens the way for same-sex couples to legally wed beginning next month. But the gay community shouldn't be celebrating. This decision does next to nothing for California gays and lesbians and causes real harm to people who believe in the "old" definition of marriage. It's nothing to be proud of.

The June weddings that can now be expected for same-sex couples all over California actually will provide little tangible advantage to anyone. California already has a domestic partnership law providing all the state benefits of marriage to same-sex couples, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act prevents all the federal benefits. Sure, gays and lesbians may get a lift in self-esteem from having their relationships declared "equal" by four jurists, but does an ego boost really outweigh the real harm caused by last week's decision?

Because there certainly are harms -- to religious liberty, to give just one example. For the past two weeks, I have been contacting "marriage equality" leaders all over California to ask about the impact of redefining marriage on religious freedom. All, including several prominent lesbian and gay legislators and other leaders, have refused to disclose their opinions, some repeatedly.

Although California marriage-equality leaders won't say what impact they expect the new decision to have on religious freedom, activists in other states haven't been so shy. Openly gay Washington state Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, and a representative of the largest Michigan gay-rights group, the Triangle Foundation, have both told me that people who continue to act as if marriage is a union between a man and a woman should face being fined, fired and even jailed until they relent.

So if a traditionally religious business owner wants to extend his "marriage discount" only to couples married in his eyes, the Triangle Foundation's Sean Kososky says, "If you are a public accommodation and you are open to anyone on Main Street that means you must be open to everyone on Main Street. If they don't do it, that's contempt and they will go to jail."

Seattle's Michael Taylor-Judd, president of the statewide Legal Marriage Alliance, said if a newspaper writes that a given same-sex marriage wasn't really a marriage, "it is certainly in the realm of possibility for someone to bring a (libel) suit, and quite possibly to be successful." Kososky agreed: "I would be sympathetic to some damages. They need to be slapped publicly."

Sharon Malheiro, a lawyer and LGBT activist from Des Moines, Iowa, affiliated with the state's gay-marriage lobby, ONE-IOWA, told me if a teacher in a marriage-equality state taught that marriage is between a man and a woman, "then it becomes a job performance issue" and the school district should take appropriate action.

Now, nobody gay in history has lost his assets, his job or his freedom for writing, teaching and running a business guided by his belief that marriage is a union of any two individuals who love each other. So why do gay activists support limitations on the freedom of speech, the media and religious expression for anyone who disagrees with them?

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Gays and lesbians should put away the champagne, work to overturn this ruling and start focusing on LGBT issues that actually matter.