How many times does it have to be pointed out to them that they won’t be forced to perform any marriage they don’t want to before they’ll finally admit it? Maybe same-sex marriage will have to be legalized before those conservative churches will stop lying.

“It will be interesting to see how anti-gay activists respond to this plea by devout Christians for a right to practice their faith.”

Here in Canada the anti-gay activists write bitter tirades against the United Church of Canada: they call it a “pseudo-Christian cult empty of biblical Christian theological content.” Other LGBT-affirming faith communities fare even worse. So, what else is new?

No one has told conservative churches that they have to marry people they don’t want to. They deny marriage to all kinds of couples and NO ONE has even threatened to deny them the right to do so. But churches like mine are specifically told by the government that we can’t marry certain members and certain couples in our church family. The government is directly impinging on the expression of our religious beliefs that all people are created equal and deserving of full civil, human and spiritual equal rights.

The issue for Quakers is that by being unable to perform the civil ceremony we’re unable to treat same-sex couples the same as opposite sex ones – gay couples HAVE to have two ceremonies. Most divorcees have to have two separate ceremonies, however that decision is purely up to the religious order, it’s not a legal requirement.