With gay marriage decided, what will be the next big left-led social change?

The next battle is probably already over -- marijuana legalization. In which, I might add, left and right do not really apply.

 

And it should be shot down. That would be a clear violation of religious freedom.

On another topic, I think it should be much, much harder to get tax exemptions for religious institutions.

 

Whoa! This requires pictures, or better yet, phone numbers.

 

Why? Church ceremonies are irrelevant to the legality of a state-sanctioned marriage. Churches also aren't businesses and aren't held to the same standards.

People have been floating this straw man for a while. But there's a big leap between forcing someone to perform a religious ceremony against their will and just saying religious people can't discriminate in how they perform their non-church job. Have there been instances of this in the states where gay marriage was already legal? I can't find any. (Nor am I aware of churches successfully being sued for not allowing gay preachers or elders or deacons or Sunday school teachers, etc. Could be mistaken, but again, I can't find examples.)

Many if not most who supported marriage equality are/would be against forcing churches to perform them. I haven't heard any of my fellow hippies and pinkos suggest that should be the rule of law.

 

Blow job girl, yo.

Fred Smoot Did A Reddit AMA And Said The Best Part Of An NFL Facility Was The Blow Job Girl, Wait What? - Barstool Sports

 

Agreed. This sounds more like "the sky is falling!" rhetoric from the opponents of gay marriage than a real threat. Count me among those in favor of equal marriage rights, but absolutely opposed to forcing churches to perform weddings for same-sex couples.

 

You would think. Sadly, however, there's also a segment of the gay community that isn't as fair-minded as you. And they have law degrees that they just looooovvveee to get their money's worth on.
It might get shot down, eventually.
Eventually.
In the meantime, they'll bankrupt churches with a decade's worth of lawyer fees, screech like a banshee about bigotry, and bring up arcane, twisting arguments until you no longer know what the original debate was about. At some point, they'll get before a judge who either sympathizes with them or also does not completely understand the issue, and get their way. Appeal, appeal, appeal, Supreme Court ... and then boom, one or two justices interpret the Constitution based on whether the coin came up heads or tails, and it's the law of the land, beyond reproach.
I wish I could be as confident as you and some others that it's a non-starter, but it's a tried and true tactic. It's basically how we've wound up with most of the social "reforms" of the past 20 years. It rarely happens at the ballot box anymore, it happens in the courts. Even if it does happen at the ballot box, it's usually because people have gotten tired of the debate and caved to perceived public opinion when it reality it's a relatively small and loud minority. Gay marriage and pot legalization, to use current examples, have gained a lot of ground in recent years but I believe most opinion polls still show it's no better than a 50-50 split on support for either one.

 

Not that churches will be forced to ... but that in those churches that don't, the weddings performed won't be official in the state's eyes. It's a "because you don't do this" kind of consequence.

I don't think it's highly likely, but I don't think it's ridiculously unlikely either. Just look at Gordon College's recent experience. It was threatened with the withdrawal of its accreditation because its president co-signed a letter* to President Obama asking him to add a religious exemption to his executive order banning sexual-orientation discrimination by federal contractors.

It isn't a huge stretch, in my eyes, to see this sort of thing manifesting itself in pressure applied to "holdout" churches.


*Here's the link to the letter

 

I don't think there will be, or should be, blowback against churches who do not perform same sex ceremonies. If I was getting married, I would not want it to be by someone who disapproved and had to be forced to do it either. For years churches have declined to marry people, typically Catholic, Jewish, Episcopalian etc, who were dealing with a couple of two different faiths who wanted one partner to convert. I'm ok with that, mostly.

I think it's time to look hard at the tax exemption for churches, though.

 

Why? I'd hate to think it is due to any particular position people of faith are taking. That would be every bit as wrong as states or local governments not wanting to be in the marriage business any more simply because they don't wan to recognize same-sex marriages.

 

No, it's not about any particular position, it's about wealth being protected simply because it is church related. I know of far too many churches with huge budgets, giant facilities, property worth in some cases millions. There have been many times that I drove by huuuge churches on prime real estate and thought about how many hungry people could have been fed off of what the stained glass window that covers the entire side of the church cost.

I'm not sure Jesus would approve of the palaces built as his temples. Shrug.

I'm not a screaming liberal. I'm this odd kind of hybrid of personal liberty and responsibility, fiscal and military conservatism, middle of the road politics (that largely does not exist any longer), socially liberal oddball.

 

There's definitely going to be a push to revoke the tax exempt status of Churches.

There's already desire to do this, and end the tax deductions for all charitable giving.

Here's one article, and it mentions the most obvious precedent, the Bob Jones University case:

Two weeks ago, with a decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on the way, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah introduced the First Amendment Defense Act, which ensures that religious institutions won’t lose their tax exemptions if they don’t support same-sex marriage. Liberals tend to think Sen. Lee’s fears are unwarranted, and they can even point to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in Friday’s case, which promises “that religious organizations and persons [will be] given proper protection.”

But I don’t think Sen. Lee is crazy. In the 1983 Bob Jones University case, the court ruled that a school could lose tax-exempt status if its policies violated “fundamental national public policy.” So far, the Bob Jones reasoning hasn’t been extended to other kinds of discrimination, but someday it could be. I’m a gay-rights supporter who was elated by Friday’s Supreme Court decision — but I honor Sen. Lee’s fears.

I don’t, however, like his solution. And he’s not going to like mine. Rather than try to rescue tax-exempt status for organizations that dissent from settled public policy on matters of race or sexuality, we need to take a more radical step. It’s time to abolish, or greatly diminish, their tax-exempt statuses.

Gay Marriage Decision Is Right Time to End Religious Tax Exemptions

Churches won't be the first step. Religious schools and charities will get hit first, but Churches are the ultimate goal. Secularists hate religion. They want to go after it, and this is the best, most clear avenue of attack.

The author of the Time piece loves the idea of St. Patrick's having to sell off its 5th Ave. location:

Exemption advocates also point out that churches would be squeezed out of high-property-value areas. But if it’s important to the people of Fifth Avenue to have a synagogue like Emanu-El or an Episcopal church like St. Thomas in their midst, they should pay full freight for it. They can afford to, more than millions of poorer New Yorkers whose tax bills the synagogue and church exemptions are currently inflating.