As Mainstream Religion Embraces Marriage Equality, The "Threat to Religious Liberty" Crumbles
As Mainstream Religion Embraces Marriage Equality, The "Threat to Religious Liberty" Argument Crumbles
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-s-trachtman/as-mainstream-religions-e_b_6795488.html
Jeffrey S. Trachtman
Partner, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP
photo credit: Breaking the glasses via photopin (license)
As the final Supreme Court showdown approaches, lingering resistance to marriage equality centers on the claim that affirming the freedom to marry for all Americans would somehow constitute an attack on religious liberty.
Once and for all: Nonsense. Double nonsense.
Allowing all couples to marry has zero impact on anybody's legally protected free exercise of religion. And the underlying assumption that there is one, uniform "religious" (by which many mean "Christian"
definition of marriage is simply false. Mainstream U.S. religion is moving almost as quickly as society at large towards full embrace of equal dignity and legal equality for LGBT individuals and families.
Exhibit A: The raft of mainstream religious organizations and nearly 2000 individual clergy who signed on to the pro-equality friend of the court brief that my firm just filed in the Supreme Court. Millions of Americans now belong to denominations that accept -- and bless -- the relationships of same-sex couples. Marriage discrimination thus offends religious conscience as much as it serves it.
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