States kick off legislative session with anti-LGBT moves

Snowstorm said:

HB 0083 Religious Freedom Restoration Act would allow even government officials to refuse service (including handing out marriage certificates to gay couples) for anything that violates their religious principles.

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I sometimes wonder what would happen if an atheist government official was to refuse to hand out a marriage certificate to a fundamentalist Christian couple on the basis that their religion is misogynist, violent, exclusionary, and preaches unethical and immoral behavior. I wonder if the people who pushed for and voted for the bill would take a philosophical attitude about it.

Alessandra Kelley said:

I did not know that and I didn't think of it. I apologize for my parochialism. That makes this even meaner.

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No need to apologize.

Just pointing out not all religions consider marriage a religious affair, since people tend to forget that.

Angry Guy said:

I sometimes wonder what would happen if an atheist government official was to refuse to hand out a marriage certificate to a fundamentalist Christian couple on the basis that their religion is misogynist, violent, exclusionary, and preaches unethical and immoral behavior. I wonder if the people who pushed for and voted for the bill would take a philosophical attitude about it.

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Yeah, I'm an atheist and I imagined that too. As far as those who are pushing for this, I think they only give a tinker's dam about their own religious views and foisting them on others. (And I've let them know it as I'm quite vocal about crap like this.)

Alessandra Kelley said:

Talk about cutting off everyone's nose to spite gay faces.

That tactic reminds me of the ones used against Blacks during the civil rights movement, like closing all the public schools in the county rather than letting any Blacks in, or filling in the municipal swimming pools with cement.

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With both parties there is always resistance to change, like ending segregation, but to me I always had an issue with people resistant to change that gave more liberties than took it away.

Civil rights, same-sex marriage, equal pay, etc. gave other people rights that straight white males always had and in my head have a "Oh crap, yeah we should allow those things since we can vote, go to school, marry who we love/want to."

This thread is all about people butting heads on allowing people to marry any person they want. That falls into the, "Well why the frick not?"
Things like the Patriot Act and gun control involve removing your privacy or right to buy certain items and so getting that stuff right is worth fighting over, but not this.

When religious people get all riled up thinking that gays are trying to change the definition of marriage, they must recognize that there are two types of marriages in this country, those recognized by the church and those unions recognized by the state. You can't make a church recognize a gay union because that is a private club who's members are the congregation, but gays, straights, religious people are all citizens equal under the law, thus the state has an obligation to recognize all unions. A marriage license is only issued by the state and that is the marriage that gays are seeking.