re: Upon what legal basis can a Christian church refuse to perform same-sex marriages?
Sandy: Seperation of church and state. They can get married legally at the courthouse. Did Rome define morality for the Jews? No.
But you should know as well as any that sooner or later churches will be sued for refusing to marry same-sex couples if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against California’s prop 8. A church cannot violate the Constitution of the U.S. If the Court rules that states may not define what marriage is, then they’ve just, by fiat, declared that same-sex marriage is a Constitutional right throughout the land. That will become the “rule of law”.
re: Did Rome define morality for the Jews? No.
Acutally, Rome did, at least to a certain extent, define morality for everyone they conquered. This was one of the reasons Christians got in trouble because they refused to acknowledge that Caesar was a “god”.
By the way, Rome was not a democratically elected Constitutional Republic built upon the Judeo-Christian idea that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”. Rome, though it did have a type of representative “republic” (senate) - ultimately became a totalitarian state where the state/emperorer was the “rule of law”.
I know of churches that do no marriages. Why are they not sued? Please....let me know of all instances you can show where churches were sued for not providing a service available elsewhere for constitutional compliance.
Fear mongering is not helping when the issue is activist judges and not who is sinning. We all do that