It is the loss of a privilege, not a right, the privilege of discriminating, of forcing other people to follow their religion, of enforcing their religion through law, taxes and schools, of having their doctrines mirrored everywhere.

For centuries, they usurped our rights, but finally we are fighting back. They are no more worthy of pity or sympathy than slave-owners who lost their slaves.

They need to get over it, get used to the idea that they will be only equal now, and count themselves lucky that we won’t treat them as badly as they are treating us.

I have no sympathy for their loss of privilege. However, if it helps them move along, we can point out that reinforcing the separation the church and state (and business) will increase religious freedom for all. They will be able to truly choose their religion instead of having to follow a single religious practice imposed by law regardless of a person’s nominal religious choice.

Conversely, if the separation of church and state were to continue to weaken like the right wing wants it to, it is only a question of time before divorce follows abortion on the list of rights that are lost by all. Jesus never said anything about same-sex marriage, but he was very clear about divorce.

F Young

We must, in our fight for equality, keep in mind that some who state their objections are not doing so out of hate or as a talking-point. Some truly are experiencing a sense of loss.”

One of the necessary elements of a society such as ours — racially and ethnically diverse, polyglot in many respects, and home to a number of religious traditions — is that we must all compromise. To say that we must understand those who don’t wish to compromise slides past the point: yes, we can understand them, but they have to make accommodation to the rest of us, just as we do to them. For them to say that their right to observance of their religion supersedes anyone else’s rights of any kind is, I think, unacceptable.

It’s sad if they consider that they have lost an essential part of their identity, but that’s the price we pay for being Americans.

I’m afraid I have a very different attitude here: if a woman is giving up a child for adoption, she is giving up the child — she has no more authority or control over the course of the child’s life from then on. That’s part of what she’s giving up. It sounds harsh, perhaps, so say that her wishes don’t count, but I can’t think why they should.

In an earlier time, and still among many other societies, it’s assumed that, for example, an orphaned child will be taken in and raised by family — uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, older siblings. We’ve lost that here, somehow (and I don’t pretend to be able to point to causes), but that would obviate your point.

It’s on these feelings of anxiety that the religious right the world over prey, no, not just in Christianity?

Dealing with them, as far as gay advocacy is obviously very difficult.

Part of it is instruction, of showing how badly they have been misled, stirred up in the wrong kind of ways (indulging fears and indulging prejudices) by people who want political power.

The most effective way, perhaps, to reaching out to them is to challenge them with the true “narrative” (although I hate that term), one that is more reflective and discerning.

I think we could agree that the all-too-standard “left-liberal” response of simply laughing at them because they are “stoopid” is counter productive. It only raises their hackles, and even, sometimes, a regional sense of “no one is gonna tell us how to do it down here!”, which are the ancillary emotions that the false purveyors on the religious right know how to tap into in spades.

The Christians would lose the right to live in a community free from overt EVIL and SIN, and would lose the right to impose their view point by agressive proselytising (a tenet of the faith of some of them).

Ultimately our existance is a challenge to them, and our existance does affect and diminish the lives of some. They wouldn’t admit to wanting us dead, but it would be easier for them if we were.

Our “sin” is the most egregious, since we’re no longer ashamed of being gay, and want rights, unlike other sinners who are either criminal or despised (though not divorced people as seen by the adulation of Gingrich by the holier-than-thous!)

I wanted in that light to note how much respect I’ve had for this series — it takes a serious, contemplative look at tough issues, and breaks them down in a way that help us navigate through the semantic games and nonsense arguments employed by anti-gay activists. They’ve clearly required a good deal of work and, I’m guessing, a lot of editing to get it right.

In short: well done. And that comes from someone who doesn’t complement easily :)

Keep it up !!

May I suggest another understanding of what conservative Christians mean by “religious freedom”…

They are not necessarily fearful that they will be denied the ability to pray as they wish or believe as they like. Sure, there is some of that rhetoric, but that is mostly slippery-slope oogie-boogie scare talk.

Yes, this is stuff that their focus group researchers have told them will scare people into supporting them and donating. But it isn’t the real fear.

Rather, to understand what they mean, you have to consider what religion means to them. It goes beyond a practice of faith and takes on identity.

Restrictions on Christians that hinder their ability to live according to their faith in all matters of their life are seen by them in the same way that restrictions which limit gay people from living in accordance with our orientation are seen by us.

So it is of no value to them to say that they can pray in their churches but have to leave religion out of their public lives. That is exactly similar to telling gay people that they can do what they like in the privacy of their bedroom but to “not push it in our faces.”

Second, conservative Christians also see themselves in community. This has a bit of a dual meaning – community of believers as well as greater community of neighbors. They are one with the community of believers and are to be a blessing to their greater community.

In other words, they firmly believe that Biblical principles are not only right but are a blessing to the community. So restrictions on applying the blessings of their principles and values not only is a restriction on their faith but on their lives.

Exactly! They believe they as religious people have a right to deny us rights or take away ones we have if that is what they believe their religion tells them. They may believe that they are supposed to take away certain specified ones, or they may believe they are required by their religion to take away whatever right they personally, without religious guidance, feel we shouldn’t have. They have a right to have us not be able to legally marry, among other things.

Further, a good many conservative Christians live not only in (church) community but in social communities that agree with their values. So any restrictions on the public practice of their religions beliefs and values are restrictions not only on individuals but on the collective society. It is not only an “attack” on their values but on those of everyone they know. Such changes are a threat to their ability to create a world for themselves and their families.

Part of their idea of religious freedom is also that they should be free of us. They should have to look at and think about us as little as possible, and maybe not at all. They have a right to not have their children see a pair of women getting rice thrown at them on church steps, or a pair of men kissing in public. They have a right to use the preciously innocent eyes and ears of their kids as an excuse to not have to see or hear certain things themselves.

Of course this is all offset by individual rights of those who do not share the conservative Christians’ views. And also by the values of diversity and non-discrimination.

There truly is conflict in rights, values, and freedoms. A moral code that emphasizes diversity and non-discrimination is as subjective as one that values Biblical principles and social pressures to comply with accepted behavior.

Here is where I can’t agree. This seems like a kind of relativist stance, where the most egalitarian views can be seen as being on par with those of a person who thinks s/he has a “right” to enslave or commit genocide.

In our efforts to achieve rights and equality, let’s not pretend that they are not losing something, or that their lives will not also change.

I think in a real sense they would lose freedom of religious speech, if not in a legal sense. The more public opinion is against them, the harder it is to speak out in an anti-LGBT manner, and the harder it is for them to advocate anti-LGBT things. It’s hard to fight ridicule or majority hostility. But this isn’t an argument they can honestly make, for one because there is no direct cause and effect between a change in marriage law and a resulting change in public opinion, but for another that’s just too bad, because ridicule and non-criminal hostility are also forms of free speech and expression, and for another, they aren’t actual censorship, and don’t actually PREVENT anti-LGBT speech and expression.

My comments speak more about the auto-mechanic in mid-America who thinks that soon he will be unable to run his shop according to his Christian beliefs. Or the florist who earns most of her income doing wedding arrangements and will now be asked to do gay weddings. Or the couple who own a duplex and rent out the other half who have always tried to made sure that when their grandkids visit that they aren’t exposed to unbelievers or other bad influences.

It doesn’t reflect favorably on us to just say that these people are wrong (though they may be) and so we don’t care what they feel. That we determine their values, motivations, and beliefs to be bad or untoward does not mean that they are experience their losses in any less real of a way.

Their hesitation to employ, cater to, or live with gay people is as real as we might feel if we were told that we would have to employ, cater to, or live with anti-gay activists. It feels to them as though they are losing something real.

We must, in our fight for equality, keep in mind that some who state their objections are not doing so out of hate or as a talking-point. Some truly are experiencing a sense of loss.

The reason I replied above has a bit less to do with this George piece than it does with his work on the Manhattan Declaration.

Reframe the discussion this way: under what circumstances does an individual have a Christian duty to withdraw support from the government? Does ‘obscuring the moral truth of marriage’ really qualify?

The only thing that I can come up with for a obviously solid answer is when the government is preventing you from being a Christian, that the law has failed to preserve the ability to confess faith and form community of the faithful (some will add proclaim, but that is highly debatable).

Now, hells bells, but gay marriage is not preventing that. Therefore, I find NNL + Manhanttan Declaration as deep seated Christian hypocrisy at the best and repudiation (for the purpose of political power, “throwing your weight around”?) of Christian tenants at worst. Isn’t similar reasoning what was used to squash South American “liberation theology”, when the shoe was on the other foot?

I think that some of them are deliberately trying to put gay marriage on a list of items, like school prayer. But, it doesn’t belong with school prayer and they know it. In 2011, except to the hopelessly bigoted and ill informed, gay people are not “non believers” or reprobates.

Therefore, their clear attempt to draw the line of community at “gay” is a nonstarter. They are killing their own gay kids, for pity’s sake! It’s not an us-them.

I’m not sure the language of “values” helps to clarify. It just brings good motivations and bad, on both sides, under the same name so it is harder to see or spot any untoward beliefs.

With all due deference to the Canadian Courts, neither their constitution nor the circumstances are identical.

While it is true that anti-gay marriage laws do not bar ceremonies with theological meaning, it would be forbidden under the US Constitution to give legal sanction to the sacraments of one faith and deny them to another based on theology.

For example, a state could come up with plenty of social reasons to ban divorce or to refuse to recognize the remarriage of a divorced person. But the words of Jesus or the doctrines of the Catholic Church cannot be their basis.

If a state (or its electorate) ban the legal recognition of same-sex marriages conducted at the Unitarian church because Catholics and Baptists wish to have their theology encoded, then it is the establishment of religion. And the victim is not only the couple but also the Unitarian church.

It is one of the arguments in Perry that anti-marriage bans were and are based in religious teaching and activism.