Marriage is civil right, religious sacrament

[rug]

Commentary: The notion of infringing on religious liberties is a thicket of misunderstandings, historical distortions and outright lies.

Cynthia Tucker, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a visiting professor at the University of Georgia.
5/12/12

In the contentious debate surrounding gay marriage, a couple of conservative talking points stand out for their irrationality. One of those is the notion that allowing same-sex couples to marry would represent a gross usurpation of religious freedom.

Like the equally ridiculous idea that homosexual marriage would somehow undermine heterosexual marriage, the notion of infringing on religious liberties is a thicket of misunderstandings, historical distortions and outright lies. Now that President Barack Obama has endorsed the principle of marriage as a civil right that should be available to all citizens, I fully expect that thicket to explode, spewing a cloud of nonsense over an argument already laden with foolishness.

Take the insistence by some conservative Christians that if same-sex marriage were broadly legal, the federal government would be in a position to force Southern Baptist ministers and Catholic priests to carry out such marriages. Campaigning against gay marriage in California in 2008, Tony Perkins, head of the ultraconservative Family Research Council, declared that if same-sex marriages were legalized, “Pastors and churches will be silenced from speaking publicly against homosexuality.”

Really, that’s too idiotic to merit a response — but I’m going there anyway. Has the federal government ever ordered the Vatican to marry a divorced couple whom it deemed unworthy of the sacrament? Has the government ever tried to force a Haredi rabbi to sanction a marriage between a member of his community and a non-Jew? Of course not. Such marriages would be readily and legally performed in a courthouse, but the First Amendment protects the right of religious institutions to perform only those rituals which they choose.

http://www.timesdaily.com/stories/Marriage-is-civil-right-religious-sacrament,190505

[Brooklyn Dame]

1. If religious groups want to force their will into government policy...

...they should pay taxes like (almost) everyone else. We have separation of church and state for a reason!

http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2012/05/gay-marriage-a-rite-that-should-be-a-right/

http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2012/05/dear-republican-friends/

[rug]

2. Welcome to DU.

That site of yours looks like a solid resource.

I think, though, the use of Boswell's book is somewhat overstated.

"This is to say, not that Boswell is careless with history, but that he brings to the over sixty manuscripts 'containing ceremonies of same-sex union' he consults a hermeneutic not exercised heretofore. One strength of the book, in fact, is the modesty of the claims he makes based on the texts before him. 'Speculation,' he volunteers, 'has been kept to a minimum, although many questions remain unanswered by the sources.'

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/bosrev-bennison.asp

[Bluenorthwest]

3. In some religions and demoninations not in others...

Quakers, no sacraments. Baptists and many others have 'ordinances' not 'sacraments' and most of them count only that which Jesus did, communion and baptism, not marriage.
Important fact in terms of Romney, Mormons do not call marriage a Sacrament, the word Sacrament means the Lord's Supper in LDS and it is THE Sacrament and called just that. Now one of the offshoots of LDS calls marriage a Sacrament...
And to get specific, in Catholicism, marriage is a state of being which is sanctified by the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is the rite which is a Sacrament, not the marriage itself.
They all make it up as they go along.