Matthew J. Franck also weighs into what is at stake here. In a lengthy article he clearly demonstrates that when homosexual marriage rights are granted, that of necessity will dampen religious rights and diminish freedom. He is worth quoting at length:
“Churches and other religious organizations are major employers. They operate schools, universities, hospitals, hospices, and clinics; social service agencies, retirement homes, eldercare and childcare facilities, food pantries, and soup kitchens; and other charitable ministries of every kind. They employ teachers, doctors, nurses, psychologists, counselors and clinicians, caregivers, food-service workers, housekeeping and grounds staff, even pool lifeguards. These religious ministries typically present themselves as equal opportunity employers, and they mean it.
“Can they continue to do so in the redefined-marriage legal regime? If a church ministry hires someone in a same-sex marriage, or employs someone who enters such a marriage; or if it declines to hire such a person, or treats him or her adversely if already employed—in any of these scenarios there is trouble ahead, if federal, state, or local employment law considers it wrongful discrimination to treat persons in same-sex marriages differently from men and women in marriages.
Education too will be in jeopardy: “And on the subject of universities and schools, consider the matter of the accreditation of higher-ed programs and whole institutions, and the control of curriculum in primary and secondary education. Already we can see individual degree programs compelled by accrediting bodies, in fields such as counseling, to conform themselves to the transformed understanding of marriage and sexuality, as some religiously dissenting students have discovered to their cost.
“Whole colleges and universities are themselves accredited by regional private accrediting associations—and the accreditors are in turn accredited by the US Department of Education, and recognized by the DOE as authoritative regarding which institutions grant valid degrees and enroll students eligible for federal aid of various kinds. If and when the regional accreditors and the DOE decide that the norm of ‘respect’ for same-sex marriage must pervade higher education, which religious colleges and universities will keep standing firm in the winds that will blow?”
“The ‘ministerial exception’ to employment discrimination law, affirmed 9-0 by the Supreme Court in the Hosanna-Tabor case in January 2012, will be no protection at all, since there is no way to shoehorn all these roles and functions into that exceptions category, no matter how broadly ‘minister’ is defined. But to date, there is no state that has seen fit to accommodate the religious conscience even of avowedly religious ministries in this respect, let alone the consciences of religious persons doing business in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors.
“Or consider public accommodations law, which can cover equal access to healthcare services, marriage and family counseling, daycare, adoption services, as well as religious schools and universities that are open to taking students of every faith or none at all. Churches and other religious bodies are among the largest providers of health, social service, and educational opportunities, but they understandably consider themselves obliged to provide them in keeping with the moral dictates of their faith.”
He concludes, “The transformation of the law to redefine the meaning of marriage will be bad for marriage, bad for children, and very bad indeed for those people of faith who want to maintain their faith’s teaching on marriage, in their religious institutions and in their work. The preservation of meaningful religious liberty, it turns out, is inseparable from the preservation, in our legal order, of the truth about marriage. They stand or fall together.”
If homosexuals were once the object of intolerance, the exact opposite is now the case. The oppressed have become the oppressor, and those who dare to stand in their way had better watch out. As Michael Brown rightly states, “Today, those who have come out of the closet are trying to put their ideological opponents into the closet; those preaching tolerance have become the most intolerant; those calling for inclusion are now the most exclusionary; those celebrating diversity demand absolute uniformity.”Ultimately the State always wins. When these 'laws' pass into the legal system of the country they will create chaos amongst those of a religious mindset (except the 'religion of peace' which somehow manages to evade all manner of legislative compromises) the result of this chaos will inevitably be the closure of many heretofore helpful and socially necessary institutions.
Into the vacuum will enter 'mother government' taking up the slack, employing those whose desperation will force them to compromise their beliefs and attaching countless more onto the public teat, thus ensuring their enslavement for generations to come. Thus big government becomes a bloated Leviathan and the individual decreases.
Are people so blind that they cannot see the evidences of such a future that exist in plain site within the ongoing failures of every society built on the collective mindset.
It is a bold move on the part of the ruling/political/intellectual elite to plunge the free world back into an era where numerically few 'aristocrats' are served by the indentured majority...the only problem is that human nature being what it is, the only sure-fire future will be one of constant and perpetual 'tribal' warfare and only one who wins is the one who cares nothing for humanity.
A 'humane' cause whose end result is inhumanity.
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