There is no discrimination. The intent is not to favour or disfavour churches.
To American courts, intent is irrelevant; effect is what counts. The effect is discrimination on the basis of faith. That's not allowed.
That is the Libertarian view. The Lemon test states that it is only the primary effect that matters. And since the primary effect is to further equality, and to NO detrimental effect on the ability to freely practice a faith, nor to favour or disfavour any particular faith, then there is no justifiable claim of infringement of liberty.
No, it doesn't state that only the primary effect matters. But in this case, the primary effect is to discriminate between churches. It has no actual effect on marriage at all, or on the equality of marriage, because churches could be left to do as they please and gays would have no problem getting married in church or out.
Having marriage recognised by the state is NOT a privilege to be bestowed upon any church, it is the right of individuals to have their marriages recognised within the law. As such, the onus would be on individuals to seek marriage from outlets that are licenced to perform civil marriage, and that if their particular church does not have a civil licence, then they are welcome to hold a ceremony for their religious beliefs at their chosen church, and then get it legalised with a ceremony at another church, or registry office, or anywhere else by a licenced minister.
Yes, it's the right of people to have their marriages recognized by the law. But your proposal does not a single thing to further that -- nothing. It serves no government purpose, and thus your distinctions between churches are religious discrimination. Since it serves no government purpose, it would be seen that the primary intent and the primary effect is religious discrimination on the basis of differences in doctrine.
This is not true. The dominant church here is the Anglican Church. Some ministers within the church are against gay marriage, some are in favour of gay marriage.
The argument that such legislation would be an infringement of freedom of religion would fall flat on its face, because its not a legislation to favour nor disfavour religion, but to promote equality. The government has no control over which churches do and do not believe in equality, nor which ministers do either.
All the government does is set the standard in the interests of everybody, its not their fault if non-governmental bodies fail to meet the standard, nor is it the intent to prevent any non-governmental body from holding religious ceremonies.
Maybe under your laws, where the church is effectively a department of the government, you can tell churches what to do. Americans take freedom of religion more seriously, so any time something can be done without distinguishing between churches, any proposal which does so distinguish is judged religious discrimination. At present, there is no "licensing" of churches to perform weddings, there is only presentation of credentials to the government, which then dutifully writes down the information. What are those credentials? Whatever a church has decided is necessary, under its doctrine, to solemnize a marriage. I once met a 12-y.o. kid who could legally do weddings, because he was qualified according to his church (at the time I thought it silly, but since then I've come to understand why it has to be that way).
And i argue that you WILL need to fight that battle again, because the results the first time around were likely religiously bias, considering the influence of the church in your country.
No, that is established: government doesn't tell churches how to behave (unless it comes to the safety of citizens; but even torture in religious ceremonies is protected). And there was no bias; it was precisely the absence of bias.
It is not (and if it is in the US, should not be) the church which has a licence, it should be individuals who hold licences. That IS how it is there right?
So it is not churches being denied at all.
There's no difference under law -- a minister of a church is the same as that church. And if you're going to license individuals, that would be judged
extremely excessive government entanglement with religion.
Not a 'control' on churches.
Licensing is a control -- it's the essence of licensing, the very reason there is licensing in the first place: for control.
No church would be forced to do anything, that is a fundamental point. The freedom of religion upheld outside of the US accomodates that, so it could be done in the states just fine too.
Its irrelevent as to what church or minister A can do that church or minister B can't, its about gay rights and equality. Where there is a fundamental disagreement between 'some' faiths and gay rights, a balance needs to be struck. That balance includes legally defining marriage to be inclusive, and allowing ONLY licenced marriage officials to conduct legally recognised ceremonies. And that measure is not to discriminate against any particular faith, but to actually PROTECT those of faith from any possible court action which could be taken by a christian gay couple who were refused to be married in their church, contrary to the law which would recognise gay marriage as legal.
Yes you could argue rightly that the church (or minister) is within their right to refuse marriage that were contrary to their beliefs, but then all that is achieved is people having to keep looking around until they find a church that does, placing an imposition upon them to look around for the 'right' church, just so that other people under the current system can still have their religious ceremonies sanctioned by the state. And whilst this cannot be considered entanglement, its hardly a seperation of church and state, and thats a big problem for religious freedom. You don't have to step on the toes of the church by taking a step forward to do the right thing, but the church is only too happy to 'stomp' on the feet of gay people to prevent the state legalising gay marriage.
The states would not see what you want as freedom of religion, they'd (we'd) see it as turning select churches into instruments of the state -- because that's
exactly what it is. What we have presently IS balance: the churches don't get to require licenses of government, and the government doesn't get to requires licenses of churches.
People have to look around for a church now. Wedding shops have lists, so when a bride goes to look at a dress, she can also discover which churches will and will not do a wedding for her. So there's no imposition, because a service already exists to take care of it. Most bridal shops won't care in the least about taking a few minutes to update their software to accommodate gay wedding on their lists (BTW, bridal shops have, generally, grooms' rooms). They're in business to make money, so they have little care for what any churches say.
See, our free enterprise has already provided a remedy for your "imposition".
And again: churches don't need your hypothesized "protection" -- a judge would ask maybe two questions:
1. Is refusing to do this wedding a matter of doctrine?
2. Is there another place available for this wedding?
If the answer to those was "yes", the case would be done, in favor of the church. It's already established in secular law that a 'customer' can't sue someone for not providing a service that was available elsewhere. That would be even more emphatic for churches.
And what churches are doing as far as gay marriage is irrelevant here -- it makes your desire to impose state control on church look like a vendetta.
"advance some statist agenda"? You sound pretty damn like an anarchist to me!
And again, it wouldn't be forced upon churches to perform gay marriage, nor would any church lose any liberty.
Licenses are about control -- period.
Perhaps only America understands religious liberty. If the UK would actually accept your proposal, it certainly dooesn't.
That hardly auto-assumes religious morality. Marriage is deemed to be more important solely for the commitment to the relationship which parties have dedicated themselves to. You don't need to be christian to respect the institution of marriage.
The point was to show you wrong about Americans and religion. Most Americans would look blank at your statement about marriage, and many would be angry because you left out God.
There's a saying in the U.S., "That town has more bars than churches". It means a town is to be looked on as an immoral place. It means that because it's very odd for a town to have more bars than churches. And that's odd because the vast majority of Americans consider God the highest priority in their lives (not that they all show it very well).
WTF? It was YOU who said we should call it something else! "getting hitched" and "civil union" i recall.
I said replace the word "marriage" in the law, so everyone would know that all their relationships are nothing having anything to do with God, they are civil arrangements, period. Not for gays, for everyone. It would shove in the face of the fundamentalists that what their religious marriages mean to the government: nothing.
In fact on that topic I'd be tempted to tell churches they can't perform unions any more, period, except that it would have the effect of increasing local tax burdens.
Marriage is not a government function, its an individuals right.
If you have to have a license to perform a wedding, then it's a government function. If you have to have a license to get married, it's a government function.
That expresses the point satisfactorily that those of faith have a bias opinion of marriage, and that anything less than religious marriage is worth less. It is for that reason that government needs to kick the church into touch, and legalise gay marriage, and affirm that government sanctions marriage. Its not a right of the church to impose their ceremonies on the state.
How is any church imposing ceremonies (or doctrine) by performing weddings for people who want them to?
"Kick the church into touch" -- that's the establishment of religion, right there. It's interference with the affairs of a church, chastising them on the basis of their doctrine. It reveals what you really want very clearly: government control of churches.
P.S. I'm fully aware that the US is more religious than most of the West. Its quite a cheap point to claim that somebody doesn't know much about a country simply because they don't live there. Let's not forget that most Westerners are far, far more knowledgeable about the US, than the other way around.
But you don't understand what it means. You'd be getting liberal churches to cooperate with conservative, because the churches you'd be willing to license would stand with the ones you wouldn't. You'd see lawsuits filed in every court they could manage, ten thousand suits at once, and it would jump straight to the Supreme Court -- and they'd take it, and overturn your law in about five minutes. Because they'd see clearly that what you're about is trying to control the churches, and with every church in the land agreeing you were infringing on their liberty -- even the non-Christian ones -- it would be a slam dunk what the position of the people was.
Not that you'd ever get such a law passed -- politicians like to get re-elected.
This is fearmongering. That is not to say that some of those things you mentioned wouldn't happen, but that it is telling of the unbalanced nature of liberty in your country that these things might. By the support of Absolutism in regards to liberty, you have created a society that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, amongst others, were concerned of, that an abuse of liberty would exist. That abuse has allowed 'Talibangelicals' and other bigots to operate unchecked, and stunts the growth of humanity by failing to proactively address inherent wrongdoings.
Pure authoritarianism. You want a government that treats everyone like little children, with laws and rules everywhere.
Imposing laws on churches won't advance the growth of huanity, it will just help drag us back into tyranny where morals don't count, just power.
Oh no Kuli, i see the forest. What i also see is the palace behind the forest, and i know that Libertarians also see it. Problem is, libertarians are hacking through the thicket to get to the gates, whereas liberals are taking the road!
Quite simply put, there is a quick way to achieve progress, and there is a slow one.
I don't believe that the course of Libertarians will take them down the same road tho.
I think it is important for government to inhibit liberty to a finite degree, in order that the populous evolves to be as alike as possible, despite their differences.
My view of libertarianism is, that it has a heart in the right place, but not a head!
Libertarianism is the only political philosophy that treats human beings as having the potential to be mature individuals.
The bolded part: Its about time that the religious fundamentalists and bigots were slapped down. THEY are out of line, but your absolute liberty ideal blocks any action against them, i bet the Talibangelicals as you call them, LOVE libertarians.
The only legitimate action against them is to do the right thing and let them learn from others. Try to exert control over churches, you may just end up with a second American Revolution -- there are people yearning for a reason, and they probably have 15% of the population with them... at a minimum.
And the result of this revolution would love your idea of government control all over the place, and they'd say they were advancing the growth of mankind by giving us a theocracy where gays could be stoned without court action.
The way to deal with the talibangelicals is to let them become irrelevant.
