Kim Davis Shows Off Her New Prison Tats
Posted: September 9, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Kentucky, Kim Davis, Photography, Prison, Same-sex marriage, satire, Tattoos 1 CommentBREAKING: Kentucky Clerk Who Refused to Issue Marriage Licenses to Same-Sex Couples Held in Contempt of Court
Posted: September 3, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Law & Justice, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Activism, Contempt of court, Kentucky, Marriage License, NBC News, Same-sex marriage, SCOTUS Leave a commentTRENDING! Licking Other People’s Stuff
Posted: July 10, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Abortion debate, Academy Award, Adoption, American's Creed, Andrew Cuomo, Ariana Grande, BEN SHAPIRO, doughnuts, Fight Club, Rihanna, Same-sex marriage, Susan Sarandon, Thelma & Louise Leave a commentOn Thursday, actress Susan Sarandon, most famous for citrusing her breasts in Atlantic City and driving off a cliff in Thelma and Louise, came out in support of pop brat doughnut-licker Ariana Grande
Grande was caught on tape badmouthing America after spreading her saliva on doughnuts on display; she justified that action the next day, claiming she had to fight childhood obesity by surreptitiously tonguing the sugary products. Now, Sarandon has tweeted:
Today, lick a doughnut in solidarity with @ArianaGrande. A sweet, talented, true American. 🍩🇺🇸
— Susan Sarandon (@SusanSarandon) July 9, 2015
Never mind the illogic of Grande’s contention that she secretly licked doughnuts to discourage others from eating them – if she truly wanted to discourage others, she could have stomped on them publicly, or called for a nationwide boycott of doughnuts, or cut a new version of “Problem” in which Iggy Azalea raps about moving beyond doughy joy. Focus instead on the nihilism of defacing someone else’s property without their knowledge. It takes a special kind of emptiness to do something like that.
[Read the full text here, at Breitbart]
But the left is fine with that sort of behavior so long as the target is someone who hasn’t bought into leftist thought. That’s undoubtedly why Grande wrote that her doughnut-licking represented a crusade against big, bad American fatties:
As an advocate for healthy eating, food is very important to me and I sometimes get upset by how freely we as Americans eat and consume things without giving any thought to the consequences that it has on our health and society as a whole. The fact that the United States has the highest child obesity rate in the world frustrates me.
Read the rest of this entry »
Does Japan’s Conservative Shinto Religion Support Gay Marriage?
Posted: June 29, 2015 Filed under: Asia, History, Japan, Religion | Tags: Alliance Defending Freedom, Hobby Lobby, Homosexuality, Kawasaki Japan, Same-sex marriage, Shinto, Shinto priest, Shinto shrine, Supreme Court of the United States Leave a commentTOKYO — John Matthews writes: In January 1999, a Shinto priest unofficially married two men in a shrine in Kawasaki, an industrial city near Tokyo. Literally “the way of the gods,” Shinto is officially the state religion of Japan, but it does not influence modern Japanese life the way that Christianity dominates in the United States. Rather, it’s more a matter of a shared culture — of ritual practices and belief in spirits — against which some people define themselves.
The ceremony took place at Kanamara Shrine, best known for its annual Festival of the Steel Phallus, during which participants pray for easy childbirth or protection from sexually transmitted diseases. Hirohiko Nakamura, the priest who performed the rites, told local media then that this was probably the first time a wedding ceremony had been held for two men in Japan. “This may become a call to seriously think about the diversity of sex,” he said.
“In Shinto, it says make many children, expand humanity, and be prosperous. And yet, it’s not explicitly written anywhere that homosexuality is wrong or a sin.”
— Hisae Nakamura
Fast-forward 16 years. On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in all 50 states, overturning decades of often active and religiously motivated government discrimination against a minority of Americans. In Japan, gay marriage remains illegal — except for in one district, or ward, in Tokyo, which began recognizing same-sex marriages in March. A month earlier, conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has been arguing for revising Japan’s Constitution to allow a more assertive military, said that reforming the Japanese Constitution to allow for gay marriage would be difficult.
[Check out Louis Crompton‘s 2003 book “Homosexuality and Civilization” at Amazon.com]
Across Japan, opinions about gay rights diverge. Technically, homosexuality is legal, Kazuyuki Minami, a lawyer in Osaka, reminded a journalist from the Associated Press, “but the atmosphere is such that most people feel homosexuals should not exist.” Reuters, citing a mid-2013 poll by the research firm Ipsos, reported that while 60 or 70 percent of people in most Western nations say they know someone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, only 5 percent of Japanese do. Kanae Doi, the Japan director for the advocacy organization Human Rights Watch, told Foreign Policy that while many Japanese are not opposed to homosexuality, “they don’t really see it.”
[Read the full text here, at Foreign Policy]
And while Shinto doesn’t have a clear stance on homosexuality, it “advocates that it’s not natural,” as one Shinto priest told me in Tokyo’s prominent Meiji Shrine in early June, a few weeks before the Supreme Court ruling. The Association of Shinto Shrines, the administrative body that oversees Japan’s estimated 80,000 shrines and 20,000 priests, tend to be conservative on social issues, the priest said. Read the rest of this entry »
America, Rejoice! Same Sex Ruling Sets Up National Reciprocity for Concealed Carry
Posted: June 27, 2015 Filed under: Law & Justice, Self Defense | Tags: 14th Amendment, 2nd amendment, Bible, Civil Rights, Conceal Carry, Gun control, Gun rights, Guns, Health Insurance, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Same-sex marriage, SCOTUS, Supreme Court of the United States 1 CommentAWR Hawkins writes: When the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that every state must recognize same sex marriages, they used a basis for judgement that will not easily stop at same sex marriage. In fact, it is a basis for judgement that should offer itself to national reciprocity of concealed carry permits and permit holders.
The SCOTUS legalized same sex marriage by finding a right which Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg , Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen G. Breyer, and Elena Kagan ruled as beyond a state-by-state prerogative via the 14th Amendment.
Crucial in this ruling is the fact that same sex marriage–now recognized by the SCOTUS–is not the only right the 14th Amendment shields from state-by-state prerogative and/or recognition.
Consider this pertinent aspect of the court’s Majority Opinion, written by Justice Kennedy and printed by the LA Times:
Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The fundamental liberties protected by this Clause include most of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
Now the question–Are 2nd Amendment rights among those “protected by this Clause”? Read the rest of this entry »
Dissent Is Now The Highest Form Of Bigotry
Posted: June 27, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Law & Justice, Mediasphere | Tags: Activism, Civil union, Dissent, Editorial, Intolerance, Letter to the editor, Marxism, media, news, Newspapers, Op-ed, Progressivism, propaganda, Same-sex marriage, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Supreme Court of the United States, The Patriot-News, United States 1 CommentRead on… from Brandon McGinley at The Federalist
Also, from Daily Caller‘s Betsy Rothstein writes:
The editorial board of PennLive/The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. is taking a hardcore stance against those who disagree with the Supreme Court ruling to legalize gay marriage.
“As a result of Friday’s ruling, PennLive/The Patriot-News will no longer accept, nor will it print, op-Eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage,” they declared.
After receiving strong pushback, the newspaper’s editorial board, which is overseen by Editorial Page Editor John Micek, quickly revised its policy. Freedom of speech will be allowed — but only for a “limited” period of time. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Kelsey Harkness: Emails Raise Questions About Bias in Sweet Cakes Ruling
Posted: June 2, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Law & Justice, Politics | Tags: Administrative law judge, Advocacy group, Basic Rights Oregon, Brad Avakian, Government agency, Hans von Spakovsky, LGBT rights organization, Oregon, Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, Same-sex marriage 1 CommentKelsey Harkness writes:
…Communications between the agency, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, and the LGBT organization, Basic Rights Oregon, raise questions about potential bias in the state’s decision to charge the Kleins with discrimination for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding.
In April, a judge for the agency recommended the Kleins be fined $135,000.
Communications obtained through a public records request show employees of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries—which pursued the case against the Kleins—participating in phone calls, texting, and attending meetings with Basic Rights Oregon, the largest LGBT advocacy group in the state…(read more)
Modern Sin: Holding On to Your Belief
Posted: May 1, 2015 Filed under: Law & Justice, Religion, Think Tank | Tags: Anal sex, Andrew Napolitano, Asa Hutchinson, Christianity, Indiana, Mike Pence, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Same-sex marriage, Sexual orientation, United States Leave a commentTrying to put florists, bakers and others out of work for unapproved ideas about marriage
Charlotte Allen writes: On Tuesday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that asks whether the Constitution requires states to allow same-sex couples to marry. Four days before the hearing, in Oregon, an administrative-law judge proposed a $135,000 fine against Aaron and Melissa Klein, proprietors of the Sweet Cakes bakery in Gresham, for the “emotional distress” suffered by a lesbian couple for whom the Kleins, citing their Christian belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, had declined to bake a wedding cake in 2013.
“Media sympathy for the Kleins’ claim that being forced to participate in a same-sex wedding would violate their consciences ranged from nonexistent to…nonexistent. A CNN headline dubbed the Kleins’ since-closed business the ‘anti-gay bakery’; the Huffington Post prefers ‘anti-gay baker.’”
Same-sex marriage wasn’t legal in Oregon when the Kleins made their decision. But the couple was found to have violated a 2008 Oregon law forbidding discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation.
“The victors have dropped their conciliatory stance. Bubonic plague-level hysteria surged through the media, academia and mega-corporate America in March after Indiana passed a law—modeled on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993—that would enable religious believers to opt out of universally applicable laws under some circumstances.”
Media sympathy for the Kleins’ claim that being forced to participate in a same-sex wedding would violate their consciences ranged from nonexistent to . . . nonexistent. A CNN headline dubbed the Kleins’ since-closed business the “anti-gay bakery”; the Huffington Post prefers “anti-gay baker.”
[Read the full text here, at WSJ]
[Also see Bake Me a Cake — Or Else by Mark Hemingway]
Supporters of the Kleins—who have five children and operated the bakery out of their home—quickly went on the crowdfunding website GoFundMe to try to raise money to help the family pay legal fees and the fine, which still requires approval by the state labor commissioner. The effort managed to raise more than $100,000 in a few hours. But then, on Saturday night, GoFundMe abruptly shut down the online appeal because the Kleins’ case involved “formal charges.”
[Check out Charlotte Allen’s book “The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus“ at Amazon.com]
The Kleins join a small number of bakers, florists and photographers around the country, most of whom say they serve and even employ gays in their over-the-counter operations but who also insist that their Christian beliefs in man-woman marriage preclude their providing services to same-sex weddings. Those numbers will probably dwindle further: Many states are treating those acts of conscience as ordinary bigotry and, by levying or threatening fines, forcing those small business owners into costly and potentially ruinous litigation. Read the rest of this entry »
Rock Paper Scissors: Christian Who Asked Gay Rights Bakery to Bake Anti-Gay Marriage Cake May Face Legal Action
Posted: April 13, 2015 Filed under: Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, Religion | Tags: Center for Science in the Public Interest, Christian, Dana Loesch, Florida, Freedom of religion, Glenn Beck, GoFundMe, Indiana, Longwood, Same-sex marriage, United States, YouTube Leave a commentCake Fake Controversy Enters Twilight Zone
Donna Rachel Edmunds reports: A bakery that has refused to bake a cake with an anti-gay wedding message has found itself at the centre of controversy. But unlike mirror image cases in which Christian bakers have been taken to court for refusing to bake pro-gay marriage cakes, this time, it is the Christian to tried to place the order who may face legal action.
The latest skirmish in an ongoing battle between Christians and gay rights campaigners began when pastor Josh Feuerstein called Cut the Cake in Longwood, Florida to request a sheet cake with the slogan “We do not support gay marriage” written on it.
Sharon Haller, owner of Cut the Cake, who took the call, asked Feuerstein whether the request was a prank (it took place on April 1st), before refusing to bake the cake saying “We wouldn’t do that, sorry”. She then hung up without explaining her reasons.
The brief call was recorded by Feuerstein who then turned to the camera to give his views on the debate currently taking place.
“It obviously violates her principles, so she doesn’t feel like she should be forced to make the cake. And yet there is all of this hoopla because Christian bakeries think that they shouldn’t be forced,” he said. “We’re getting to the place in America now where Christians are not allowed any form of freedom of speech.
“Have we gotten to the point in America where the left is so ‘open minded’ that they’re close minded to anybody that doesn’t agree with them, or is America big enough for different points of view? Christian bakeries should never be forced to do something that violates their Christian principles. That’s not American.
“I love gay people. This is nothing against gay people. This is about religious freedom.”
Feuerstein posted the video to YouTube, but according to WND he removed the video when Haller started to receive harassing phone calls and messages on Facebook. However, Haller then posted the video herself to the Cut the Cake Facebook page, commenting “Yes the video has been deleted by Joshua Feuerstein but the damage is done! Our reviews have been marred and our business reviews are no longer the same. We thought this was a prank! Look for yourself.”
Haller told local media that she had received intimidating calls and even death threats from people all over the country who had seen the video. “People (are) telling us that we need to kill ourselves and all kinds of stuff, and we’re just afraid for our business and our safety,” she said. Local police stepped up patrols in her area. Read the rest of this entry »
Salon Champions Violent Hatred: Memories Pizza ‘Getting Exactly What It Deserved’
Posted: April 5, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Religion | Tags: Alternative rock, Boycott, discrimination, Indiana, LGBT, LGBT community, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Republican Party (United States), Same-sex marriage, The Daily Caller, Twitter Leave a commentLiberal clickbait factory Salon.com wants to let you know that Memories Pizza, the pizzeria supportive of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Act that was forced to close after constant abuse and death threats, got “exactly what it deserved.”
[Also see – Owners Of Indiana Pizzeria Opposed To Gay Marriage Receive Death Threats]
In a now-deleted tweet, Salon’s Twitter account gloated over the closure of “anti-LGBT” pizza shop:
The link in the body of the tweet goes to a very brief Salon article which reports on Memories Pizza’s closure, but omits any mention of the death threats:
The owners of a small-town pizza shop who showed support for Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act have announced that they will be closing indefinitely, after facing mounting protests outside the physical establishment and online. Memories Pizza owner Kevin O’Connor told Fox News on Wednesday that due to an inability to differentiate between real and fake orders, he and his family would be taking a break. Read the rest of this entry »
Arsonists For Tolerance: Indiana Coach Suspended After Threatening to Burn Down Christian-Owned Pizzeria
Posted: April 1, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Religion | Tags: discrimination, Indiana, Jess Dooley, media, news, Pizza, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Same-sex marriage, Same-sex relationship, Twitter, Walkerton, Yelp Leave a commentHysterical Media Whipping Up the Next Ferguson?
The head coach of an Indiana high school girl’s golf team has been suspended after apparently threatening to burn down a Christian-owned pizzeria.
Have we strangled the last Mormon florist with the entrails of the last evangelical pizza provider yet?
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) April 1, 2015
Jess Dooley, a coach at Concord High School of Elkhart, Indiana allegedly struck out at the owner of Memories Pizza in Walkerton, IN who made news on Tuesday by saying that she would not cater a wedding if a gay couple tried to hire her for the job, after the state passed its own Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
“We are a Christian establishment,” pizza shop owner told the media.
On the heels of the news from the pizza shop, coach Dooley allegedly took to Twitter to say, “Who’s going to Walkerton, IN to burn down #memoriespizza w me? Agree with #FreedomofReligion bill? “That’s a lifestyle they CHOOSE” Ignorant.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] The Conservatarian Manifesto: Should Libertarians and Conservatives Unite?
Posted: March 23, 2015 Filed under: Politics, Reading Room, Think Tank | Tags: Alexis de Tocqueville, Cato Institute, Civil society, Conservatism, Edward Snowden, Libertarian conservatism, National Constitution Center, National Review, National Security Agency, Nick Gillespie, Rand Paul, Reason.tv, Same-sex marriage 1 Comment“I think the ‘conservatarian’ term is not a linguistic trick, it is a substantive attempt to describe a certain coterie on the right,” explains Charles C. W. Cooke, a writer for National Review and author of The Conservatarian Manifesto: Libertarians, Conservatives, and the Fight for the Right’s Future“. “These are the people who say when they are around libertarians they feel conservative, and when they are around conservatives they feel libertarian…(read more)
[Check out Charles C. W. Cooke‘s new book: “The Conservatarian Manifesto: Libertarians, Conservatives, and the Fight for the Right’s Future” at Amazon.com]
Reason TV‘s Nick Gillespie sat down with Cooke to discuss his book…(read more)
[VIDEO] The Hammer: ‘Culture of Left Only Satisfied in Destroying People Who Oppose Them’
Posted: April 5, 2014 Filed under: Censorship, U.S. News | Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Brendan Eich, Charles Krauthammer, Daily Caller, George Will, Kirsten Powers, Mozilla, Same-sex marriage 2 CommentsCharles Krauthammer calls for a counter-boycott of Mozilla
“This is the culture of the left not being satisfied with making an argument, or even prevailing in an argument, but in destroying personally and marginalizing people who oppose them…”
For The Daily Caller, Brendan Bordelon reports: Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer called for Americans to affect a “counter-boycott” of Mozilla after the company fired their CEO for donating to an anti-gay marriage campaign, calling the move “totalitarian discourse…”
“…This is totalitarian discourse, and it shows a level of intolerance that is absolutely — it should be unacceptable, and people ought to get what they’re giving out and field a counter-boycott.”
Krauthammer spoke on a Fox News panel with USA Today columnist Kirsten Powers and conservative columnist George Will, discussing Brendan Eich’s dismissal from popular web browser provider Mozilla after activists discovered he donated $1,000 to California’s Prop 8 campaign — which made gay marriage illegal in the state. Many gay activists boycotted Mozilla, leading to Eich’s eventual termination.
Will noted that Eich’s dismissal is “an illustration of a new phenomenon. No one likes sore losers, but now we have sore winners. The gay rights movement is winning — particularly with regard to same-sex marriage — with a speed and breadth that simply takes your breath away . . . Yet unsatisfied with victory, they seem to want to stamp out and punish people for their previous views.” Read the rest of this entry »
Religious Liberty After Arizona
Posted: February 28, 2014 Filed under: Law & Justice, Think Tank | Tags: Arizona, Bill Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Freedom of religion, Jan Brewer, Kevin Williamson, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Same-sex marriage 1 CommentFor The Federalist Ben Domenech writes: Government, properly understood, is an agent of force. It can cause people to not do things they would otherwise do, and can compel them to do things they otherwise would not do. It does this in small ways and big ways, in nudges and at the end of a gun. At its best, as limited government conservatives and libertarians alike understand, government causes and compels only in those arenas it must, invading the scope of human life as little as possible. At its worst, government becomes, in Saint Augustine’s phrase, a system of “great robberies” where plunder is divided by the law agreed on, and people are subdued by force in accordance to the whims of the powerful elite.
So what are we to make of the divisions that emerged in the course of Arizona’s consideration of its version of a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the responses it inspired? I think it comes down to a matter of priorities, and to the broad-based willingness to let personal inclinations about what society ought to look like overwhelm a reasonable understanding of the ramifications of giving government the power to shape that society.
21st Century Narcissism: Woman Marries Herself, Embraces Her “Inner Groom”
Posted: October 8, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Anderson Cooper, Divorce, Huffington Post, KSAZ-TV, Marriage, North Dakota, Power Line, Same-sex marriage, Shutterstock 2 Comments
Fine. If he doesn’t come, I’ll marry myself. I can buy batteries in bulk, and watch porn by myself.
As Powerline blog notes, commenting on this same article, it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish supposedly serious news sites from the Onion.
According to the ever-entertaining and self-aggrandizing Huffington Post, Nadine Schweigert married herself and “opened up about self marriage.”
A 36-year-old North Dakota woman who married herself in a commitment ceremony last March has now spoken about her self-marriage choice in an interview with Anderson Cooper.
The marriage took place among friends and family who were encouraged to “blow kisses to the world” after she exchanged rings with her “inner groom”, My Fox Phoenix reports.
Let’s Divorce Marriage from the Government
Posted: June 29, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere, Reading Room | Tags: Anthony Kennedy, Bacardi, California, Defense of Marriage Act, Hadley Arkes, Jerry Brown, Same-sex marriage, Supreme Court of the United States Leave a commentIn 2013 rather than the 1950s, a technical error on a marriage certificate wouldn’t cause anyone consternation. But let’s say, for some reason or another, the government invalidated my marriage. Would it matter?
Not really. Marriage is primarily a pact between two people and, in the view of many, a sacrament of the church. The state merely recognizes this contract. If, say, a totalitarian government (think the Khmer Rouge or others like them that have meddled in such things) dissolved my marriage, my wife and I would still be married. The state could make our lives miserable, but it couldn’t end our marriage.
Yet that point seems lost these days. The public battles involve two sides who see the government as the means to legitimize their viewpoints. One side says gay marriage is wrong and the other says that it is the same as any other marriage. The two sides will never see eye to eye.
The governmental “benefits” at the heart of many of the gay-marriage battles are mostly rhetorical window-dressing. The state shouldn’t be handing out many privileges or payments and to whatever degree issues involving hospital visitation and inheritances are an issue, their terms and conditions can easily be worked out without a cultural war over the meaning of “marriage.”
Unfortunately, the court’s meddling has ensured that such a battle will keep going.
I’m not unsympathetic to the high court’s 5-4 decision to overturn most of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, designed specifically to deny governmental benefits to gay couples and to allow states to refuse recognition of gay marriages from other states. If the government gives out stuff, it’s reasonable to insist that it give it out in the most fair-minded basis.
The majority’s rhetoric reflects its desire to take a noble stand in this cultural divide. The court’s dissenters were right that the majority opinion was overheated. But at least the decision made some legal sense. “The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the state, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.
By contrast, the court’s decision (actually, a non-decision) on California’s Prop. 8 seemed lifted out of “Alice in Wonderland.” In 2008, voters approved this constitutional ban on gay marriage. Jerry Brown as attorney general and now governor opposed it, so he refused to defend it against court challenges. The Supremes refused to rule on the merits of the statute because its defenders didn’t have “standing.” Only the state government apparently had such standing — but that government refused to do its duty.
As National Review’s Hadley Arkes put it, “If the state has a Democratic governor … he may declare now that he will not enforce the constitutional amendment, for he thinks it runs counter to the federal Constitution.” The meaning is even broader and more disturbing than that. Top officials of all parties now have de facto veto power over all voter initiatives. They simply need not defend in court any initiative they don’t like and there is no one else the high court will allow to defend it. That’s an anti-democratic precedent.
There’s no doubt the courts, legislatures, and public opinion are moving in a pro-gay-marriage direction. Timemagazine was right to declare this “one of the fastest civil rights shifts in the nation’s history.” The culture has shifted. That part doesn’t bother me. I have no problem with gay people getting married. But it disturbs me when the battles are fought in the political system rather than in the cultural arena. Both sides are responsible for the over-politicization of this personal and cultural matter, by the way.
The best solution always has been the separation of marriage and state. If my priest decides to marry gay people, then my fellow parishioners would have every right to be upset about that based on their cultural traditions and understanding of Scripture. If your pastor wants to marry gay people, then it’s none of my business. The terms of marriage should be decided by religious and other private organizations, and the state shouldn’t intervene short of a compelling reason (i.e., marriage by force or with children).
Liberals were more open to this “separation” idea back when conservative pro-family types were ascendant. Now, some conservatives are understanding its merits as a more liberal view is ascendant. Conservatives should have listened when they had some bargaining power, but everyone wants to impose their values on others by using government.
Government neutrality — or the closest we can get to it — is the best way to ensure fairness and social peace on this and most other social issues. Marriage is too important of an institution to be dependent on the wiles of the state. Do we really care if the state validates our marriage licenses?