Gay Rights vs Religion War in US Supreme Court

Could religious institutions lose tax-exempt status over 

Supreme Court’s gay marriage case?

This war between gay rights and religion was inevitable from the moment gays began lobbying for recognition as equal to Christians and everybody else. This is a completely defensive war by Christians and completely offensive by the LGBTQetc. lobby. 

Christianity hasn't changed it's viewpoint on homosexuality, ever, but society has in the past two decades abandoned thousands of years of history and decided that homosexuality is not a sin, it's a sexual or gender identity. Society has come to believe that we have a right to choose our sexual or gender identity. For thousands, if not millions of years, we were born either male or female. Now we have no idea what some people are? Is that progressive society or progressive insanity? It's cultural suicide!

Activists protest outside the Supreme Court on April 28, 2015 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Olivier Douliery/Getty Images)

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey

The Supreme Court Tuesday considered whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, raising questions about how it would affect religious institutions.

During oral arguments, Justice Samuel Alito compared the case to that of Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian university in South Carolina. The Supreme Court ruled in 1983 the school was not entitled to a tax-exempt status if it barred interracial marriage.

Here is an exchange between Alito and Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., arguing for the same-sex couples on behalf of the Obama administration.

Justice Alito: Well, in the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to tax­exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage or interracial dating.  So would the same apply to a 10 university or a college if it opposed same­-sex marriage?

General Verrilli:  You know, ­­I don’t think I can answer that question without knowing more specifics, but it’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito.  It is­­ it is going to be an issue.

US Supreme Court

Bob Jones received national attention when then-presidential candidate George W. Bush visited in 2000, prompting the school to drop its ban on interracial dating. The case has been a cause for concern among religious institutions that hold that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Justice Antonin Scalia asked attorney Mary L. Bonauto, who is representing gay couples in the case, whether it is it conceivable that a minister could decline to marry two men if indeed the Supreme Court holds that they have a constitutional right to marry.

“No clergy is forced to marry any couple that they don’t want to marry,” Bonauto said. “We have those protections.”

Justice Elena Kagan clarified by comparing the question of whether rabbis would have to marry Jews and non-Jews. “You agree that that ministers will not have to conduct same-­sex marriages,” Scalia asked Bonauto.

“If they do not want to, that is correct.  I believe that is affirmed under the First Amendment,” Bonauto said.

Mmmm, for how long?

Chief Justice John Roberts asked, “Would a religious school that has married housing be required to afford such housing to same-­sex couples?”

Verrilli said that individual states could strike different balances because there there is no federal law now generally banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Justice Stephen Breyer asked whether purely religious reasons to oppose same-sex marriage were sufficient. John Bursch, who argued for state bans against same-sex marriage, replied that he is not arguing on the religious grounds.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey is a religion reporter, covering how faith intersects with politics, culture and...everything. She can be found on Twitter @spulliam.