Posted on 04/28/2014 10:29:12 AM PDT by GIdget2004
A group of Charlotte-area ministers have helped launch the country’s first faith-based challenge to same-sex marriage, claiming in a lawsuit filed Monday that North Carolina’s laws block them from practicing their religion.
The local religious leaders, who include a rabbi, are joined by colleagues from Asheville and Raleigh along with a national denomination, the United Church of Christ. All of them support the rights of same-sex couples to marry.
They say state prohibitions, including a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2012, violate their First Amendment right of freedom of religion.
“The core protection of the First Amendment is that government may not regulate religious beliefs or take sides in religious controversies,” says Jonathan Martel, a Washington, D.C., attorney helping with the case.
“Marriage performed by clergy is a spiritual exercise and expression of faith essential to the values and continuity of the religion that government may regulate only where it has a compelling interest.”
The lawsuit was expected to be formally announced in 10:30 a.m. Monday press conference at Holy Covenant United Church of Christ. Church pastor Nancy Allison is one of the persons suing Attorney General Roy Cooper and other state officials, asking that the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina strike the laws down.
It becomes the 66th legal challenge to marriage bans now in the courts, three of them in North Carolina. But it is the first to attack same-sex marriage bans on religious grounds, said Charlotte attorney Jake Sussman, lead counsel for the group.
(Excerpt) Read more at charlotteobserver.com ...
Can’t the clergy still perform these marriages?
It’s the civil marriage that is banned,isn’t it?
.
BS they can perform “marriages” all they want, they just can’t make them legal.
Exactly.
But government forcing people to act AGAINST their religious faith is somehow constitutional?
Servants of Satan
These so-called pastors no doubt preside over failing churches and congregations of nearly zero.
They have put themselves out there for propaganda purposes only.
Until then, someone should tell these clowns to read up on their theology.
Spot on. There is no “ban”, but rather a legal definition of marriage that does not include homosexual pairings.
Or “normal”. The real and only goal here.
An amicus brief in support of the so called “ban” by avowedly Christian and Jewish churches should be filed to act as a separator from those no-longer-Christian churches that support the union of Bob and Gary.
This should be immediately thrown out of court based on lack of standing. If this “church” wants to play house, there is nothing stopping them.
Nothing is stopping them from marrying whoever they deem suitable for marriage. But there would be no way to punish those who disagree with them. So the state needs to be involved to provide a way to punish those who disagree with them about it. I mean, they won’t even marry members of their own faith unless the state gives them permission, so the actual marriages in question must not actually be too important to them.
Freegards
Even if what they pretend is a religion permits gay “marriages”, state prohibitions on imitation marriages do not infringe. It’s the same as Mormon polygamy - FedGov prohibited polygamy, which LDS permitted Polygamy, with the result that Mormons could not have more than one wife at a time. I’m a very big fan of freedom of religion, but no religion has ever required gay “marriage” and only recognizing real marriages does not affect freedom of religion.
It should be if the judge follows the law. But I doubt it.
Someone just took their lamp and tossed it into the abyss.
Bingo.
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