Rather amazing that the same Chief Justice Roberts, who performed amazing legal gymnastics to uphold Obamacare, can also write a cogent dissent on the gay marriage issue, exposing today’s ruling for what it is: five liberal lawyers, with commissions to interpret the law, imposing their beliefs on a nation that remains largely opposed to gay marriage, in spite of recent polling data.
He also correctly identifies the next fight, and trust me, it’s coming:
“Hard questions arise when people of faith exercise religion in ways that seem to conflict with the new right to same-sex marriage—when, for example, a religious college provides married student housing only to opposite-sex married couples, or a religious adoption agency declines to place children with same-sex married couples. Indeed, the Solicitor General candidly acknowledged that the tax-exempt status of some religious institutions would be in question if they opposed same sex marriage...unfortunately, people of faith can take little comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today.”
The recently-retired senior pastor of my church once shared a dream he had with the congregation. In the last years of his life, he saw himself in prison for refusing to support the rights of gays. I haven’t spoken with him since this morning’s ruling, but he would probably say he’s one step closer to that prison cell.
Alot of this nonsense would be moot if we would recognize from the BOA the freedom of association and stop officially rewarding or punishing private people and organizations for what they choose to do.
Frankly the whole civil-rights thing torpedoed our basic rights. And it is only getting worse. Everyone has to print a whole list of how they do not exclude anyone - as if they had a choice.