Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Freedom Forum Live Blog
Oct 08, 2009
103 Comments
At 12:30, the Forum begins in East Wing 115A. The two legal experts involved are Douglas Laycock, Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law at The University of Michigan, and Gary Buseck (BC Law ‘80), Legal Director of GLAD. Eagleionline.com Staff will present selected questions to the speakers at today’s Forum; please submit questions as comments to this post before the Forum begins. Staff members Adam Brenner, Ryan Morrison and Paul Sousa will be live-blogging the Forum, commenting to this posting throughout.
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Another audience member is pointing out that religious reservations with gay marriage aren’t just moral or religious ones; that religious persons may believe that gay marriage is harmful to society at large.
Laycock: We have free speech rules to protect those views and of course the church should have a right to promulgate those views.
Another: What’s the underlying, justifying principle that Laycock was invoking today?
She is noting that it’s not about inconveniencing gay couples, it’s about whether the government will allow anyone to discriminate against a significant group of people?
Laycock finds it just as… heartbreaking?… to force people to act in violation of their religious beliefs. He’s noting that two centuries of religious warfare was in the forefront of the Framers’ minds, and that’s why religious beliefs were singled out for protection.
The student has just followed up, noting the controversy has significant consequences, perhaps even violence against gay people. Laycock stated no one is trying to carve out religious exemption for violence.
Student: why not completely separate religious and state marriage?
I personally wish religious and state marriage weren’t thought of as the same thing. I think a lot of problems would have been avoided if the word "marriage" had never been applied to both interchangeably.
It’s very clear that some members of the audience find the issues being discussed very upsetting. I would have to describe the emotional atmosphere, however, as sorrowful rather than angry.
Laycock says that this is a great idea of separating religious and state marriage. He believes that it is a political non-starter but a good direction to head in.
Laycock: Judges much more comfortable applying a specific exemption recently legislated than trying to apply a constitutional provision over 220 years old.
Forum over. It felt short.
Well, at the end of the day the forum provided two very thoughtful points of view but it really wasn’t a debate. What did everyone think?
Something I wanted to ask, but did not have an opportunity to:Laycock seemed to weigh the extremes on the gay side with the religious folks as equal. However, it seems incredibly inaccurate. 18,000 gay couples were married in California in a short span of time. Thousands are married here in MA, some now for five years. How many lawsuits have been filed by those gay people on the basis of discrimination by religious people for refusing to provide catering or photography at their weddings? Is the injustice of requiring someone who is religious to perform a service for a gay couple against their conscious greater than the injustice of keeping tens of thousands of gay couples from sharing in the government’s recognition of their relationship? I doubt it. And why does one’s religious conscious automatically trump one’s right to marry? It seems clear to me that the folks on the anti gay marriage side are impacting far more lives than gays advocating for marriage equality. Allowing gay marriage impacts religious freedom far less than bans on gay marriage impact gay couples, their families, their friends and society as a whole. Mo hit the nail on the head when she said that these protections do more than simply protect the Catholic photographer who doesn’t want to be forced to take pictures at a gay wedding – it breeds contempt for gay couples in our society. We rid our society of laws that did that when it came to race and miscegenation (and even other religions).
No one in this debate addressed the fact that refusing to condone homosexual sexual acts or any sexual act that does not respect the Sacredness and Dignity of the Human Person is not discrimination to begin with. Marriage Equality already exists. Civil Law requires that all Persons meet the same standards if they wish to be Married. No where in the Constitution is a separate personhood established based on sexual preferences nor does the Constitution establish the right to discuss various sexual preferences as part of a curriculum within the public School System. The Constitution does provide for protecting Freedom of Religion, and since Boston College professes to be Catholic, Professor Fitzgibbons, and anyone else in the Boston Law School that has the courage to be Catholic, is free to profess their Catholic Faith regarding the Sacrament of Marriage, which has been consistent for over 2,000 years, including that period of History when our Founding Fathers established protection for our Freedom to practice our Religion, to begin with.
Sounds like the forum was a waste of time.
"No one in this debate addressed the fact that refusing to condone homosexual sexual acts or any sexual act that does not respect the Sacredness and Dignity of the Human Person is not discrimination"Maybe I missed this in an earlier post, but who are you, or your religion, to decide what does and does not respect the "Sacredness and Dignity of the Human Person?"
Nancy:You’re right–your private beliefs are not discrimination.They are prejudice.Using those beliefs to deny equality to certain citizens is discrimination.In the privacy of your home or your church you may believe and practice whatever you like.What you are never free to do is make public laws and policies which conform to your personal prejudice against a certain segment of the population.You state, "No where in the Constitution is a separate personhood established based on sexual preferences"…which is precisely why the Supreme Judicial Court of our Commonwealth determined that the practice of denying the benefits and responsibilities of civil marriage to couples of the same sex is discriminatory, and could no longer be justified.Civil marriage is not a sacrament; it is a legal contract. Hysterical allegations (which have no basis whatsoever in fact) about how marriage equality will impact religious liberty and public education are red herrings cast into this discussion by those who seek to enshrine their religious views in state and federal law.No, the Constitution does not create "separate personhood" on the basis of sexual preference…not yet, anyway.If it ever does, it will be because of the efforts of religious suprematists like yourself–and that would indeed be a sad day for us all.
With all due respect, Married in MA, sexual preference is not a Person, which is why the Constitution does not provide for establishing a separate personhood based on sexual preferences. The right to not condone sexual acts that do not respect the Sacredness and Dignity of the Human Person is not discrimination.
P.S., an example of discrimination against a Person would be the failure to acknowledge the fact that a Child in their Mother’s Womb is a Human Individual, (definition of a Person) endowed by our Creator, Nature’s God, with the unalienable Right to Life, (as referred to by our Founding Fathers) to begin with.
Nancy:You seem to still be trying to inject the altogether unrelated issue of religious liberty into this discussion.You, your family and the Catholic Church (or any religious organization) need never "condone" same-sex relationships.No one is asking you to; no one will force you to.If that were true, then the "flood of lawsuits" you and Professor Fitzgibbon are afraid of would surely have materialized over the five years since marriage equality became the law in Massachusetts.The fact is, it hasn’t happened.No one, myself included, is advocating "forcing" churches to marry same-sex couples.I myself am agnostic; my partner is Lutheran. We were married in 2004 by a Unitarian minister…not under threat of legal action, but because we asked, and it was the minister’s privilege–one which she joyfully undertook.Had we not found a church whose priest or pastor was willing to marry us, we would have gone to City Hall to be married by a Justice of the Peace.We certainly wouldn’t have dreamt of trying to have our marriage take place in an institution, like the Catholic Church, which isn’t welcoming (or, in fact, hostile to gay people).When planning our ceremony, we made it very clear to the baker, the florist, and the caterer that they were providing their services to a same-sex couple. None of them had any reservations about working with us and, if they had, I would have looked for other businesses. Really, think about it–I’m sure you wouldn’t try to rent a hall for your reception from someone who refused to deal with Roman Catholics just so you could haul them into court, now would you? How ludicrous!What this is really about–and what you seem incapable of understanding–is that marriage equality applies to civil marriage contracts, not religious ones. Catholic parishes, Episcopal congregations, Orthodox synagogues all will continue to be free to bar the door to same-sex couples seeking marriage, without fear of government intervention–but only their own doors, not those of City Hall.Allegations about abrogation of religious freedom raised by opponents of marriage equality are nothing but a smokescreen designed to conceal the true motive behind their campaigns: animus against gay men and lesbians.The fact is, nobody is attempting to interfere with your ability to freely practice your religion.You, on the other hand, are proposing a roll-back of rights which have been granted to me and other members of my minority by our government.You and your Church are free to define marriage however you please; however, civil marriage in our pluralistic society is a separate matter–one in which no Church should be meddling.
P.S., Nancy:Of course, when all else fails, play the abortion card.All you have behind your arguments is misguided moral indignation and regurgitated religious babble.So go right ahead, pull the pin on that Holy Hand Grenade and lob it. Use the nuclear option. I suppose next you’ll compare me to Hitler?Maybe you haven’t been listening, but I’m a gay man. I’m not about to get an abortion.And marriage equality isn’t about sex, it’s about love–a concept with which you are clearly unfamiliar.
The fact that you chose to define yourself according to your sexual preference does not change the fact that homosexuality is not a Person. The Faith of the Catholic Church is grounded in The Truth of Love, respecting the Sacredness and Dignity of the Human Person. Any act that does not respect the Sacredness and the Dignity of the Human Person, is not an act of Love, to begin with. Where in the Constitution does it state that the Government has the right to establish personhood based on sexual preference? Marriage Equality already exists.
The fact that you chose to define yourself according to your sexual preference does not change the fact that homosexuality is not a Person. The Faith of the Catholic Church is grounded in The Truth of Love, respecting the Sacredness and Dignity of the Human Person. Any act that does not respect the Sacredness and the Dignity of the Human Person, is not an act of Love, to begin with. Where in the Constitution does it state that the Government has the right to establish personhood based on sexual preference? Marriage Equality already exists.
Married in MA – well said. However, there’s really no point wasting energy arguing w/Nancy. I think I asked her, thru the comments, over a week ago why I should care about what her alleged Catholic God thinks and I’m still waiting on an answer….
Someone ask Nancy if she would prohibit alcohol because it’s immoral for society at large for anyone to drink, rather than just choosing not to drink on her own. Or why gay marriage is a sticking point for her in terms of the health of society when she could be spending the time working against other big immoralities (like letting children starve or go without health insurance).
Nancy:You aren’t responding to my arguments, are you?All you seem able to do is spout lines that read like they’re lifted straight from a Catechism (or perhaps the Opus Dei employee handbook).For your information, marriage equality, in the sense under discussion here, exists in the US only in Massachusetts and a handful of other states.As for the Constitution you keep referring to, the fact that it does not mention sexual preference is precisely why same-sex couples deserve equal treatment with regard to the institution of civil marriage.It is you and those like you who seek to establish a caste system of citizenship, and define lesbians and gay men as undeserving of marriage.Equal treatment under law–civil law, not ecclesiastical law–is what we’re talking about.Whether your religion ever recognizes my marriage (or my "personhood", for that matter) is of no consequence.Pray for my immortal soul, if you think I’m damned; knock yourself out–I don’t care.But, quite frankly, the thought of you practicing law anywhere other than Vatican City or Topeka, Kansas is something that scares the crap out of me.
One more point I’d like to make:It is the prerogative of the state, not the Church, to decide who may or may not marry.This is why nobody–not even the Pope Himself–may legally marry any couple in Massachusetts unless they have been issued a license by the Commonwealth.Further, if His Holiness were to preside over a marriage in a Catholic church here in Boston, he would be required to recite these words:
The Church may give its blessing to a union, but it is the state which grants the Church the power to perform marriages, not vice versa.Our state government resides in Boston, not Rome, and here it has been determined that, absent any impediments, two people of the same gender may be legally married.This is not to say, however, that a same-sex couple may walk into any church and demand to be married, over the objection of its leaders or congregants. (After all, who wants to be heckled at their own wedding?)In Maine, the marriage equality law as passed included specific provisions to the contrary.The claim that marriage equality restricts religious freedom is spurious.It is hard for me to believe that a reasonable person can follow this debate without wondering what opponents of marriage equality are really against–the legal right of same-sex couples to be married…or our very existence?
FYI: http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a4.htmhttp://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c3a7.htm
Nancy, what is the U.S. statute that enacts the Vatican’s catechisms into United States law? I can’t find it anywhere.
Talon – nowhere because unlike what Nancy might think, IF this country were to be run by a church, it wouldn’t be a Catholic one anyway. Would she rather have separation of church and state or a Protestant-run nation. Centuries of warfare and murder between Catholics and Protestants leads me to believe she’d rather have the former.
Nancy:Tell us, you poor dear–Was it your parents, or the nuns who subjected you to the intellectual equivalent of Chinese foot binding?Now you can’t even be bothered to cut and paste the Vatican’s words, you just link to them? Any brainless search engine can do that. But you’re not a search engine, are you?I do hope you won’t revert to Catechism citations when you’re making closing arguments in a real legal case, where your clients’ futures will depend on the outcome.As much fun as it’s been, continuing to engage you would hardly be sporting.But I would like to leave you with this parting thought:The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland has donated well over $110,000 in cash and in-kind contributions to the Yes on 1 campaign, while simultaneously planning the closure of no fewer than five parishes.How can you possibly reconcile this with the Church’s mission to serve its parishioners, never mind the poor and the sick?How much real, good work could have been done with that money? How many families could have had enough food on the table? How many homeless could have had a roof over their heads? How many elderly shut-ins could have had enough heat to make it through the winter?But instead, the Diocese has chosen to divert that money to a campaign intended to strip marriage equality from thousands of people–many of whom aren’t even Catholic.The Roman Catholic Church, reaching out not to its own followers, but to people of all faiths–only to take away their civil rights.I hope you’re proud of yourselves.
Talon, the Judeo-Christian God is the God with the capitalized G, as referred to by our Founding Fathers. Both the New and Old Testament refer to the complementary nature of Marriage as "the two become one flesh". If the nature of Marriage was not complementary, the two would equal two. Our Founding Fathers unaminously agreed that Nature’s God refered to the Judeo-Christian God which is why the Constitution never considered "sexual-preference" as a separate personhood, to begin with.
Nancy– So because the Framers all believed in God, we are a Catholic country? Our laws mirror those of the bishop of Rome?And I really want to find in the U.S. Code where it enacts the catechisms of the Pope. I want to see if they’re all enacted, or just in part, or if they apply only to some individuals and not others, or what. I just can’t find it. I would also be curious to find out which Congress put the catechisms into law, because some of these Vatican teachings seem really new, and yet I don’t remember a recent Congress acting on them recently.
Nancy,You are obviously as ill-informed about American History as you are about jurisprudence, the history of marriage, and the human condition–and, in fact, about your own religion.The Englishmen who settled New England, for their part, would have had you hanged, drawn and quartered as a "papist spy".Their great-great grandchildren, the ‘Founding Fathers’, in their wisdom respected a principle (which you, apparently, repudiate) known as Separation of Church and State.So, too, do most modern Catholics.
If you really want to serve God and recite the Catechism all day, why don’t you do yourself and the rest of the world a favor by entering a Carmelite convent?
The Ten Commandments as well as the Truths that are self-evident because they are endowed to each one of us from our Creator, God, with the Capital G, according to our Founding Fathers, are Universal Truths, which means they pertain to everyone, not just Catholics.
Nancy– Really? That’s your answer? Despite the fact that the Framers weren’t Catholic, they recognized the same God as you do, and that means the United States observes the teachings of the Pope?Have you ever convinced anyone, in your entire lifetime, that you’re right, with that reasoning?If so, you should consider spending less time trying to convert comatose patients at whatever hospital you must visit so much. If not, doesn’t that make you wonder if your reasoning just doesn’t make sense to anyone that’s thinking?You’re not crazy, Nancy. Everyone else is crazy.
Talon, it means that, according to our Founding Fathers, our Constitution is founded upon the Truths that are self-evident, endowed to each one of us from our Creator, Nature’s God, to begin with.
The Truth Nancy is that you are [edited] and probably not even a BC Law student, but some [edited] who is distracting intelligent people from intelligent discussion on a real issue. Get thee to a nunnery!
Nancy:Fail, with a Capital F.Game Over; Thank you for playing.Good night.
Where does the word "God" appear in our Constitution?
God is the author of The Truths that are self-evident, and unless you can prove that between the time that our Founding Fathers unaminously signed the Declaration of Independence and drafted the Constitution, our Founding Fathers declared, unaminously, that these self-evident Truths are not endowed to each one of us from our Creator, Nature’s God, it is you, who have failed to make your case. Even your ad hominem attempts can not change what we all know is true, to begin with.The Game is not over. All things are passing, only Love remains.I wish you Peace in Christ.
Nancy– Regarding your point that many of the same people who wrote the Declaration of Independence wrote the Constitution, and probably didn’t change their religious beliefs… you are definitely coming to the wrong conclusion.It’s not that the Framers needed to repudiate their beliefs in the Constitution. The fact that those words are NOT in the Constitution is a deliberate choice. From that, we can assume that though God was invoked while declaring their natural rights, they did not want God’s endorsement printed in United States law.The Constitution was a collaboration and compromise of many colonies that adhered to different traditions. Massachusetts was founded to escape religious persecution from mainline Protestants and Catholics; but when it didn’t tolerate others’ religious beliefs and separate church and state, Roger Williams founded Rhode Island. I can’t imagine that RI, with its traditions, would have signed off on a Constitution that stated its authority came from God or observed God’s authority. And I’m glad they didn’t, because I want the Constitution to last as long as possible.
Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, for the most part.Roger Williams’ use of the phrase "wall of separation" in describing his preferred relationship between religion and other matters is credited as the first use of that phrase, and Thomas Jefferson’s source in later writing of the wall of separation between church and state in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802.
And everyone knows Thomas Jefferson was an atheist. He invoked God to make the point clear to the King, who was the leader of the Church, that the God he believed in was on their side.
Talon, Married in MA, 3L, Anonymous, etc.: paraphrasing a recent lesson from Newton’s own Barney Frank, arguing with this person is about as useful as having a discussion with your dining room table. All of your time, frustration and intellect would be put to better use volunteering for Equality Maine, writing letters to Maine voters, or otherwise trying to effect the outcome of the vote there. It would be sweet, indeed, if Prof. Fitzgibbons’s foolish ad ended up lighting a fire in the bellies of folks in the BCLS community just enough to preserve marriage equality in Maine. Nancy isn’t going to change her mind, she’s just sapping your energy and strength and providing a distraction from the task at hand.
Dan Roth ‘04: 10 Nancy: 0
According to our Founding Fathers, the fact that it is God (capitalized) Who Has endowed Mankind with the Truths that are self-evident is self-evident.
Our Founding Fathers also committed genocide against Native Americans, enslaved black people and subjugated women (something the Bible accepts as a self-evident truth by the way). Can we stop revering these men as if they were gods themselves? Only one of them wrote the Declaration of Independence and only 56 men signed it. They weren’t Moses on the mountaintop…they were flawed mortal men. Anyone who thinks they knew everything or 233 years later, we should still be blindly following everything they had to say is a fool. Even they were smart enough 12 years after signing that document to realize they needed to leave the God out of the Law to avoid the problems they had with the King and to avoid the problems we have today with people like Nancy thinking God has anything to do with our Law.
Another self-evident Truth – God only knows where we would be Today if we had not compromised His Truth, to begin with.