Who said anything about enforcing gay marriage within a church though? The way I see it, gay people would like to enter into a contract with the state, and the church (that they probably aren't even members of) wants to interfere with that.

If the state defines marriage as a contract between 2 people, there is still nothing stopping Mormons (or anyone else) from plural marriages within their church, other than their predisposition towards pedophilia. You can still be married to one person and (ie.)"handfasted" to whomever else you want.... they just don't get the perks that come with government contract. The government is still not legislating morality to the church.

I don't think it's the government's job to protect churches from the wishes of the People.

If a church refuses to marry a gay couple, that's religion.

If a JP (or the US equivalent) refuses to marry a gay couple, that's politics. A JP is supposed to represent the state and if the state says it's ok, then the JP has no alternative. If they're not comfortable with the duties of their office, they should step down.

If a gay couple are members of a church community, then most likely that community would have no problem with the church performing the ceremony. If they just pick a church and blow in off the street, then surely they must expect to be rejected on the basis of religious belief just as a lot of other non-denominational couples are if they happen to choose a hard line church.

Nah.. But it doesn't really matter. Religions have ALWAYS changed to fit the changing beliefs of the cultures around them. They can try to lead if they like, but if they can't lead, they can only follow... or disappear with all the other belief systems, into the sands of time.

If Mormons still had plural marriage, Mormonism would be a highly suspect cult and nobody would be able to admit being Mormon in public. And then Mormonism would just dry up and go away.

That's also why, in 1978, the Mormon church stopped preaching that blacks were cursed, and started allowing them in their priesthood. It's not that they aren't allowed that belief or that discrimination. Ha ha, you and I have surely spent enough time in Amishland Lancaster County to see that really ugly discrimination and terrible behavior is quite permitted. It's that eventually they are such a horrid backward laughingstock that they can't participate in the rest of society; and unlike the Amish, the Mormons are friendly joiners, and they don't like that.

By whom? Against whom?

Nothing. Any church can refuse to marry anyone they want.They already do. Churches refuse to marry plenty of people. Catholics, in particular, won't marry divorced people. The government will.Liable, perhaps, but only in the court of public opinion.There would be no "enforcement of gay marriage within a church". There would be recognition of gay marriage, whether it was performed in a church or not. And if a progressive Mosque performed gay marriages, then they would indeed be recognized.

This works for me, except on the level of maintaining records that are useful for geneology purposes.

However, allowing anyone who wants to get married to legally do so doesn't strike me as the government getting into the business of religion. By restricting contractual unions solely on the basis of religious tenets, they are already *in* the religion business, so by removing such restrictions, it is a step *out* of that business from my POV.

Well

Hard to document a closed society. But I'll wager you never saw a black Amish person. Black Mennonites, that I've seen. Blacks in Lancaster town proper, like 25%, I'm guessing. I saw an Amish guy stare down a black guy once and it gave me the heebie jeebies.

You'll never hear about Amish sexual abuse of children but that's because they keep it hushed up so well. You'll never hear about Amish physical abuse of children but you will admire how sullen and quiet the kids are in public and wonder how they got that way. When the stories come out they are appalling.

I'll guess about half the shitty dogs in this state were puppy milled out of Amish dog farms.

I'm just not a fan.

This issue has already come up with miscegenation laws. Some states even wrote those laws into their constitutions. Some churches actually kept a second set of books for interracial marriages in those states where they were illegal.

There were two attempts by Democrats in Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to ban interracial marriages. If that had happened, the Supreme Court would have been unable to nullify the existing laws with Loving v. Virginia. This is why the bar has been set so high for constitutional amendments. Now we do not look on interracial marriages as the death of civilization as we know it and most Americans would not support these kind of laws today.

Of course the question becomes, is a person who officiates at a gay marriage (or officiated at an interracial marriage when they were illegal) committing an illegal act or is it simply that the marriage is not recognized?

In 2004, there was an attempt to charge a mayor in New York for marrying gay couples. The legal excuse created was a Catch-22 similar to that used to catch Al Capone. The state did not allow gay marriage and would not accept applications. In essence, they were attempting to charge him for not filling out paperwork that they were not going to accept.

Ah, gotcha... I agree.

What irony.

Not really irony. The Southern Democrats mixed racism with populism. Racism was widespread, so the majority condoned institutional racism.

With the Civil Rights Act, most of the bigoted *******s got fed up and changed their party allegiance.

Some changed, but not all. They just changed their bigotry to something else.

Hence the war on gays.

Hence the war on anyone who opposed gays.