[P-Marlowe]

And lose tax exempt status.

No. The church can preside over the religious ceremony of "holy matrimony'.

If someone wants to get "married" and have it recognized by the State, you just go to the county clerk and register the wedding yourself.

As long as the pastor is not acting as an agent of the state, the ceremony is strictly religious and the religion can set its own standards.

Holy Matrimony is a strictly religious rite. Let the Supreme Court try to force the states to recognize gay "holy matrimony".

That would violate their perverted view of the separation of church and state.

The Supreme Court has redefined the word "married" to be a civilly recognized contract between two or more people.

Holy Matrimony is the religious rite of joining a man and a woman together before God.

[xzins]

First, the so called tax exemption that the Fed controls is not all that. It really is almost totally irrelevant in fly-over America where mortgages on houses are normal. I barely get enough deductions to make itemizing worth it. Therfore, most people in our area take the standard deduction, so their church giving doesn’t make any significant dent in the taxes paid, and even then it’s only a return on gift of their effective tax rate.

Second, ‘matrimony’ is a word with root ‘mater’, meaning mother. It is the institution designed to protect the needs of motherhood. Not that it would matter to these supremes. They’d lie to your face and tell you a train is a plane.

Finally, there is no law that says a state has to do anything at all about marriage. It could issue no licenses, collect no data, require no forms. That would probably save money. Doing nothing at all, by the way, is treating everyone equally.

[berdie]

I certainly hope you are correct.

But I really think there will be a huge rush to be married in the church (of their choice).

When refused...there will be lawsuits galore.

[taxcontrol]

You may have something there. If churches were to first require the presentation of a civil marriage license before they would perform the religious blessing of Holy Matrimony .... the church could require any number of conditions prior to administering it’s blessing. At least if one abides by the current law.

The real question then is, could the gay couple sue for a church that did not provide it’s blessing? Words and law used to have meaning. After the recent SCOTUS rulings, I am not sure anymore.

[Alberta's Child]

The good news is that the Supreme Court hasn't actually "redefined" marriage. What the Supreme Court has decided is that -- in the eyes of the government -- there is no longer any real definition of what constitutes a marriage at all. Marriage will no go back to what it always should have been: a religious institution that defines a relationship between a man and a woman before God.