It’s a myth that marriage law “bans” same-sex relationships because it treats marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
His answer is yes, sometimes: “In some instances the rights of same-sex couples will unavoidably trump religious liberty rights.” Why? If the Supreme Court redefines marriage by judicial fiat, religious observers will be forced to choose between obedience to conscience and full participation in public life, because the definition of marriage applies to everyone, including those who perceive inherent differences between men and women.
The evidence is now too extensive to ignore that one effect of redefining marriage is to force everyone to embrace a conception of marriage as a genderless institution, grounded in norms of companionship and personal fulfillment, rather than complementarity, fidelity, and permanence. Even half measures, such as civil unions, leave few domains for religious liberty. When the law abandons the traditional conception of marriage and sexuality in favor of the companionate conception, citizens must deny sexual complementarity, even in contravention of their core religious convictions, in order toparticipate fully in public life.
Against that uniformity, Stern affirms the richness of pluralism. “Under the Constitution, religious groups are free to urge and put into practice their different visions of the good, of moral life, and compete for adherents in the marketplace of ideas.” The Supreme Court should not be in the business of picking winners and losers,” he insists. “The Court can make all winners, or at least avoid allowing one side to suppress the other’s deepest beliefs. . . . Our government should not act to further one or another religious view of contested moral issues.”
These are all welcome statements. Other than abortion, no moral question is more vigorously contested today than the question of what marriage is.
Read more at Public Discourse.
Read more at Public Discourse.
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