The Coming Persecution of Churches Over "Gay Marriage"

Last week, I had a post entitled "The Coming Conflict Between Same-Sex 'Marriage' and Religious Liberty", in which I predicted:

Not to sound all gloom and doom, but I have long believed that this will be the issue that will eventually drive the Church underground to practice "in the catacombs" once again.

At one point in [Maggie] Gallagher's piece [in The Weekly Standard], this quote appears:

The problem is not that clergy will be forced to perform gay marriages or prevented from preaching their beliefs. Look past those big red herrings: "No one seriously believes that clergy will be forced, or even asked, to perform marriages that are anathema to them."

Sorry, but I seriously do foresee just that. I can easily forsee a day when the government will use "anti-discrimination" law to punish churches who "discriminate" against same-sex orientation - first by denial of tax-exempt status, and then by allowing discrimination lawsuits, etc.

And when that day comes, don't look for the courts to interpret the 1st Amendment in a manner that would protect churches from such action.

Today, Dom Bettinelli has a similar post titled "The Coming Persecution of Churches Over Gay Marriage" - highlighting an Op/Ed in the ChicagoTribune by constitutional law professor Douglas Kmiec - in which Dom and Prof. Kmiec both make pretty much the same dismal prediction that I did:

How long before gay marriage is no longer an option for churches, but becomes mandatory by law? Douglas Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine writes in today's Chicago Tribune that we can expect an eventual push to require churches to perform gay marriages.

This increased judicial approval of same-sex marriage will metastasize into the larger culture. Indeed, an insidious, but less recognized, consequence will be a push to demonize--and then punish--faith communities that refuse to bless homosexual unions.

While it may be inconceivable for many to imagine America treating churches that oppose gay marriage the same as racists who opposed interracial marriage in the 1960s, just consider the fate of the Boy Scouts. The Scouts have paid dearly for asserting their 1st Amendment right not to be forced to accept gay scoutmasters. In retaliation, the Scouts have been denied access to public parks and boat slips, charitable donation campaigns and other government benefits. The endgame of gay activists is to strip the Boy Scouts (and by extension, any other organization that morally opposes gay marriage) of its tax-exempt status under both federal and state law.

For technical legal reasons, it is difficult to challenge a religious group's non-profit status in federal court, but state court is more open. There, judicial decisions approving same-sex marriage or even state laws barring discrimination can be used to pronounce any opposing moral or religious doctrine to be "contrary to public policy." So declared, it would be short work for a state attorney general's opinion to deny the tax-exempt status of charities and most orthodox Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious bodies. If enough state lawyers do this, expect the IRS to chime in.

Punishing religious organizations for their moral beliefs might be thought contrary to the protections of the Constitution. Unfortunately, the Boy Scouts have had little success defending these bedrock precepts. Penalizing the Scouts for observing their own handbook, say lower courts, merely avoids the immediate harm of discrimination, even as the bald-faced assertion that moral belief is a "harm" is anomalous.

Dissenters Within the Church Will Lead the Way

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