Marriage and religious freedom, The Anchor, February 10, 2012

In last week’s editorial on defending our religious freedom in the midst of new attacks by the Obama Administration — the focus of Bishop George Coleman’s letter to the faithful of the diocese on this week’s front page — we mentioned how, even though the administration must continue to keep up appearances of respecting religious freedom domestically because of First Amendment protections, it is under no such constitutional restrictions in foreign policy, where its real agenda seems to have appeared. As we mentioned, the Obama State Department has abandoned the defense of religious freedom abroad, reducing its international concern to protecting “freedom of worship.” This change is not one of insignificant semantics. It means that the United States will still defend the right of people to convene to pray but will no longer support the right of people to live according to that faith.

In a December 2009 speech at Georgetown University, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave the rationale for the radical shift: so that the administration could advance — as a more important international human right than freedom of religion — the freedom of people “to love in the way they choose,” a euphemism that in subsequent policy directives has meant the promotion and protection of a radical gay agenda. Because almost all major organized religions that maintain their vigor oppose the gay agenda’s push to normalize same-sex relations, redefine marriage and family, and obliterate the significance of sexual differentiation, the Obama Administration recognizes that freedom of religion must be eviscerated or eliminated in order to advance this newly-invented “fundamental” right to “love in the way they choose.”

Even though the same connection hasn’t been admitted publicly in terms of the administration’s domestic agenda, it’s hard not to notice that the same rationale is at play in the president’s decision to abandon his constitutional oath to defend the laws of the country by refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act that President Clinton signed, and in the Obama Justice Department’s recent legal briefs that posit that maintaining marriage as the union of one man and one woman is an unconstitutional and bigoted animus toward those of the same-sex. Proponents of the novel, concocted rights to redefine marriage and “love in the way they choose” grasp that their biggest obstacle is true religious freedom, which would exempt those who follow particular religious tenets from having to submit to the radical agenda.

The connection between the attempts to redefine marriage and the threat to religious freedom was described in a powerful January “Open Letter from Religious Leaders in the United States to All Americans.” Entitled “Marriage and Religious Freedom: Fundamental Goods that Stand or Fall Together,” it was signed by 39 leaders of various faith groups in America: rabbis, Evangelicals, Lutherans, Mormons, Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, Anglicans, Methodists, Wesleyans, Assemblies of God, Friends, Protestant Ministers, the Salvation Army as well as three leaders of U.S. Bishops Conference of Catholic Bishops. As we prepare this weekend to mark World Marriage Sunday, celebrated since 1981 to buttress the institution of marriage as the lifelong union of one man and one woman, it’s a fitting time for us to ponder the truths about the connection between the defense of marriage and religious freedom that these faith leaders bring to our attention:

The letter begins by focusing on how marriage is a crucial part of the common good: “The promotion and protection of marriage — the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife — is a matter of the common good and serves the well-being of the couple, of children, of civil society and all people. The meaning and value of marriage precedes and transcends any particular society, government, or religious community. It is a universal good and the foundational institution of all societies. It is bound up with the nature of the human person as male and female, and with the essential task of bearing and nurturing children.”

Because of the importance of marriage for the common good, they continue, “Its true definition must be protected for its own sake and for the good of society.” There are “grave consequences of altering this definition,” one of the most notable of which is “the interference with the religious freedom of those who continue to affirm the true definition of ‘marriage.’”

This threat to religious freedom is principally, they say, that the government would unconstitutionally try to force religious ministers to preside over such pseudo-weddings on pain of civil or criminal liability. The most urgent danger they think is “forcing or pressuring both individuals and religious organizations — throughout their operations, well beyond religious ceremonies — to treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalent of marital sexual conduct,” something that, when many religious people and groups conscientiously resist, will lead to innumerable church-state conflicts.

Very often, those pushing the redefinition of marriage ask how their being allowed to “marry” would affect every one else. The letter describes concretely how religious believers would be impacted, “because altering the civil definition of ‘marriage’ does not change one law, but hundreds, even thousands, at once. By a single stroke, every law where rights depend on marital status — such as employment discrimination, employment benefits, adoption, education, healthcare, elder care, housing, property, and taxation — will change so that same-sex sexual relationships must be treated as if they were marriage. That requirement, in turn, will apply to religious people and groups in the ordinary course of their many private or public occupations and ministries — including running schools, hospitals, nursing homes and other housing facilities, providing adoption and counseling services, and many others.”

All these conflicts are already happening in places where same-sex relationships have recently been privileged in law. “Religious adoption services that place children exclusively with married couples would be required by law to place children with persons of the same sex who are civilly ‘married.’ Religious marriage counselors would be denied their professional accreditation for refusing to provide counseling in support of same-sex ‘married’ relationships. Religious employers who provide special health benefits to married employees would be required by law to extend those benefits to same-sex ‘spouses.’ Religious employers would also face lawsuits for taking any adverse employment action — no matter how modest — against an employee for the public act of obtaining a civil ‘marriage’ with a member of the same sex. This is not idle speculation, as these sorts of situations have already come to pass.”

But that’s not the end of the discrimination believers would face. “Even where religious people and groups succeed in avoiding civil liability in cases like these, they would face other government sanctions — the targeted withdrawal of government cooperation, grants, or other benefits. For example, in New Jersey, the state cancelled the tax-exempt status of a Methodist-run boardwalk pavilion used for religious services because the religious organization would not host a same-sex ‘wedding’ there. San Francisco dropped its $3.5 million in social service contracts with the Salvation Army because it refused to recognize same-sex ‘domestic partnerships’ in its employee benefits policies. Similarly, Portland, Maine, required Catholic Charities to extend spousal employee benefits to same-sex ‘domestic partners’ as a condition of receiving city housing and community development funds.”

The end result of religious organizations’ refusal to treat a same-sex sexual relationship as a marriage has “marked them and their members as bigots, subjecting them to the full arsenal of government punishments and pressures reserved for racists.” They predict that such punishments “will only grow more frequent and more severe if civil ‘marriage’ is redefined in additional jurisdictions” as the government begins to compel special recognition. There would be other cultural impacts on marriage, too, they say: “Because law and government not only coerce and incentivize but also teach, these sanctions would lend greater moral legitimacy to private efforts to punish those who defend marriage.”

The letter ends by calling upon all people of good will to protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to “consider carefully the far-reaching consequences for the religious freedom of all Americans if marriage is redefined.” Marriage and religious freedom are indeed fundamental goods that stand or fall together. As we celebrate World Marriage Sunday this weekend, it is a fitting time for us to resolve vigorously to defend both.