Visitors line up outside U.S. Supreme Court in Washington Oct. 6, 2014, to get a seat inside to watch oral arguments on the first day of the new term. (CNS/Jonathan Ernst, Reuters)
Posted on 02/19/2015 3:47:49 PM PST by NYer
The likelihood that the Supreme Court next June will announce its discovery of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage raises an obvious question for the Catholic Church: What do we do now?
Two steps come to mind. First, press for strong legal protections for individuals and institutions conscientiously unable to cooperate with a legal regime that requires sweeping concessions to the LGBT agenda. Second, give serious thought to the possibility that the Church should quit serving as the government’s agent in legitimating marriages.
That firm decisions at the top levels of the Church are urgently needed couldn’t be more obvious. Consider a Washington Post editorial trashing Alabama authorities for resisting a Supreme Court order on behalf of gay marriage in that state. The court told Alabama to get cracking even though the court itself remains months away from a constitutional ruling.
“The [gay rights] movement is on the verge of a historic victory,” the February 11 editorial declared. “But that doesn’t mean activists and allies have succeeded in transforming the culture that for so long denied gay men and lesbians equal treatment.”
Transforming culture? Of course. The Post editorial noted some steps to take.
“Marriage equality is just one of many goals. State legislatures and federal lawmakers need to be convinced to enhance civil rights protections for gay men and lesbians—prohibiting employment discrimination, for example, or discrimination in business transactions. In places like Alabama, that will take a lot more effort.”
One form it’s already taken can be seen not in conservative Alabama but libertarian Oregon. There the Christian owners of a bakery were found guilty of violating anti-discrimination law by declining—in 2013, before the state even recognized same-sex marriage—to supply a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. Bakery owners Aaron and Melissa Klein cited religious convictions as their reason.
According to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, the Kleins face fines as high as $150,000. The actual amount will be decided in March. A hundred and fifty thousand for a wedding cake? Is this the Post’s “a lot more effort”? Iron-clad legal protection against state coercion to fall in line with gay marriage is desperately needed for individuals like the Kleins and institutions like the Catholic Church.
It won’t be easy. The Catholic News Agency (CNA) reports that the Ford and Arcus Foundations have given several million dollars to the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups to devise ways of blocking the religious freedom argument for not cooperating with same-sex marriage. If religious groups want First Amendment protections, they’ll have to fight.
Urgently needed, too, is consideration of whether the Church should stop registering marriages for the state. Increasingly, it becomes hard to see how the Church can continue as government’s collaborator in this matter once the Supreme Court makes it final that what the government means by marriage is opposed to what the Church means.
Confusion about the meaning of marriage is already widespread. It’s the underlying issue in the crisis of marriage that last fall’s Synod of Bishops on marriage should have confronted and didn’t. But the synod’s omission is no reason for the Church to persist in a relationship with government that deepens the confusion.
A two-step procedure—come by the courthouse for a civil ceremony that satisfies the state, then come to church for a sacramental marriage—may sound cumbersome, but it’s an opportunity for catechesis on what marriage means. As secular America heads down the same-sex path, the Church now must go another, better way.
I see where some retarded flippin’ “judge” in Texas pronounced “medical” gay “marriage” legal today in that state. That’s flippin’ weird. “Medical marijuana” and now, “medical gay marriage”. Whodda thunk?! I love this country!!!
They are Catholics according to their denomination.
Marriage has pretty much always been either legal, or illegal, in Rome, in Greece, in Europe during the Middle Ages. in Colonial and early America, in tribes, everywhere.
Oh, wait. Never mind.
Separate the legal state from the religious one. Allow any two people to register a domestic partnership for all legal purposes, allow any religious institution to preform, or refuse to, any given ceremony at its discretion.
The legal situation would be the same. But why bother with a church if you’re doing that ... a couple can “marry themselves” or have a group of people over and have a party and marry themselves. You don’t need a church to do that. There’s actually nothing in the Bible that says you need some kind of church or pastor to get married.
SO ... skip the license, if you’r not interested in being legally married under civil laws, and forget the church because you don’t really need it ... :-) ...
Don’t know. But they WILL. Anything we can do about it, I doubt. Ignore? Is that enough???
Mass civil disobedience. Don’t do anything for a gay couple. If they walk into your store, just close it without comment. If they walk into your church, respectfully decline and go to jail. By the thousands.
Look at Pope Francis....
It will be the final symbolic moment telling me that America has fully become a truly depraved country; an entity of evil. Accordingly, I’ll never lift a finger to defend such a country.
Totally agree. I can tell every one I drive a ‘67 Mustang GT 500 until I believe it but when they see my 10 year old minivan they’ll know better. But I would still believe it.
Roberts (Chief Justice).....Catholic
Scalia.....Catholic
Kennedy.....Catholic
Thomas.....Catholic
Ginsburg.....Jewish
Alito.....Catholic
Sotomayor.....Catholic
Kagan.....Jewish
Breyer.....Jewish
Leni
I’m not Catholic so the whole Catholic/state marriage thing doesn’t mean anything to me. I can still go to a church and have the ceremony.
For some reason the idea of getting married without the license agitates the hell out of gays. My militant lesbian cousin goes nuts when I say I would forego the license. She seems to have some kind of fear that it will damage the social security system.
What I don’t get here is “Why bother with a church?”
By that I mean, if one doesn’t get a marriage legally registered, then as far as the legal mechanisms of the state, the couple is not married. And since the “church marriage” doesn’t change that state’s position on it (without being duly registered and recorded), why bother with a church marriage, when people THEMSELVES can do the same thing, totally apart from any church.
I really don’t know why someone “needs” a church to do that, unless it’s just for a picture album.
Seems to me we are already at that pit
Read Romans 1.. we are under the judgement of God..and only HE can free a man from that
That’s interesting.
I think that kind of “marriage” ... has to do with legal matters more than anything else. The legal status, as far as the “state” is concerned ... changes ... when they are “legally married” — even if you don’t personally believe they are truly married. It relates to things like taxes, wills, inheritance, medical matters and rights and so on.
The Pace opinion shows that while the Court acknowledged the better-known interpretation of the EPC from the point of view of law abiding citizens, the Court nonetheless properly ignored that aspect of the EPC since the states had never amended the Constitution to establish limits on the 10th Amendment-protected power of the states to regulate marriage.
But the Pace justices also borrowed language from a 14A-based federal Civil Rights Law to clarify the lesser-know criminal aspect of the EPC, indicating that it also protected criminals by providing the right to equal punishment for a given crime.
The counsel is undoubtedly correct in his view of the purpose of the clause of the amendment in question -- that it was to prevent hostile and discriminating state legislation against any person or class of persons. Equality of protection under the laws implies not only accessibility by each one, whatever his race, on the same terms with others to the courts of the country for the security of his person and property, but that in the administration of criminal justice, he shall not be subjected for the same offense to any greater or different punishment [emphasis added]. Such was the view of Congress in the reenactment of the Civil Rights Act of May 31, 1870, c. 114, after the adoption of the amendment. That act, after providing that all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right, in every state and territory, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, declares, in sec. 16, that they shall be subject”to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.”— Pace v. Alabama, 1883 .
Noting that Court was satisfied that the state had punished the couple equally, the Court decided Pace in the state’s favor. However, a later generation of justices essentially overturned Pace for questionable reasons imo, reasons which will be addressed shortly.
At this point, readers should beware that activist justices had infiltrated the Supreme Court by the late 19th century imo, the Court really going into a tailspin with anti-state sovereignty interpretations of the Constitution after socialist FDR had “nuked” the Court with activist justices by the early 1940s.
Getting back to the Court overturning Pace when it decided McLaughlin v. Florida (McLaughlin) against the state in 1964 (OUCH), the McLaughlin opinion shows that justices had decided that the Pace Court had interpreted the EPC too “narrowly” with respect to interracial marriage, and I agree in principle.
However, it turns out that the federal civil rights law that the Pace Court had borrowed the “narrow” language from to clarify the criminal aspect of the EPC was actually authored by John Bingham who also happened to be the main author of Section 1 of 14A where the EPC is found. So by saying that the language in Pace concerning the EPC was too narrow, McLaughlin justices were arguably wrongly ignoring the intentions of constitutional lawmakers, particularly since state power to regulate marriage has never been constitutionally limited as previously mentioned.
In fact, Bingham had clarified in the congressional record on several occasions that 14A did not take away state rights, the Court’s decision in Pace evidence of those rights.
“The adoption of the proposed amendment will take from the States no rights (emphasis added) that belong to the States.” —John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See bottom half of first column)
“No right (emphasis added) reserved by the Constitution to the States should be impaired…” —John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See top half of 1st column)
“Do gentlemen say that by so legislating we would strike down the rights of the State? God forbid. I believe our dual system of government essential to our national existance.” —John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See bottom half of third column)
Again, and noting that I am a product of the last half 20th century, I agree in principle with the McLaughlin argument that EPC was interpreted too narrowly in Pace with respect to interracial marriage by today’s standards. But given that the language in Pace was actually borrowed from the pen of Bingham, the Court wrongly “fixed” what it perceived to be a constitutional problem by ignoring state sovereignty and politically amending the Constitution from the bench when it overturned the Pace decision imo.
As mentioned in related threads, the states are free to make 10th Amendment-protected laws which discriminate on the basis of issues which the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect imo. But we cannot allow institutionally indoctrinated activist justices to “fix” questionable laws which discriminate against constitutionally unprotected “rights” by doing so outside the framework of the Constitution.
If I am ever again called to jury duty, I will simply tell them: I have no obligation to interpret the law as it is supposedly written. I will interpret it according to my own desires. If the Supreme Court can do it, so can I.
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