A Gay Marriage Equality bill (read SB 6239) has been introduced this month in Washington State. The measure is deceptive and exceedingly dangerous. It represents a radical shift in the definition of marriage, and it would pose a serious threat to religious freedom.Churches and ministers who participate in the newly defined “discrimination” against gays would be subject to lawsuits and legal penalties. If they have their way we will be bludgeoned into acceptance and submission. They want the church to accept and approve of gay marriage whether we like it or not.
Pastor Joe Fuiten
The state has already granted gays every right that goes along with marriage. They have equality under the law. But that’s apparently not enough for Governor Gregoire and the homosexual special interest groups. The backers of the Gay Marriage Equality bill will not be satisfied until virtually every church in Washington is forced to allow gays to hold their weddings in church sanctuaries under the threat of discrimination lawsuits. The laws against discrimination are so expansive that virtually every church in Washington could come under legal threat. Just fighting back legally could bankrupt most churches whether or not we were actually guilty of anything.
All the hype on this bill says it protects religious freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth. The bill says a church can refuse to marry gays without being subject to “a civil claim or cause of action unless…. When someone says we are not going to have a problem “unless…” we already have a problem. More than that, when they add a section to the marriage laws covering “discrimination” they are telling you how this will eventually go down. They intend to come after churches and clergy using discrimination as their weapon. Section 7 merits a very careful read:
Consistent with the law against discrimination [RCW 49.60], no religious organization is required to provide accommodations, facilities, advantages, privileges, services, or goods related to the solemnization or celebration of a marriage unless the organization offers admission, occupancy, or use of these accommodations or facilities to the public for a fee, or offers those advantages, privileges, services, or goods to the public for sale.
They want us to tolerate them but they don’t want to tolerate us. They want to use the power of the state and civil rights laws to force the church into accepting homosexuality. They give lip service to religious freedom while at the same time setting up the legal system to empower homosexual coercion of the church. This is not marriage equality. It is the setup for a knockdown. They already have equality but that is not what they actually want. They want to force the church to accept homosexuality.
Some churches might be able to decline to host gay weddings under some limited circumstances but would be forced to allow gay weddings in their sanctuary under most circumstances.
What churches could be forced to allow gay weddings?
- Does the public ever use your facilities? If you ever allow non-members to use your sanctuary for a wedding you could NOT deny a gay couple from using your sanctuary.
- Do you have a pop machine or sell coffee?
- Do you sometimes have fundraisers where you sell cookies or popcorn for consumption at the church?
- Have you ever allowed your church to be used by another Christian organization for which they paid you a fee?
All of those actions would open the door to a civil rights lawsuit and severe penalties if you failed to allow a gay couple to use your facility to have their wedding.
The laws covering discrimination create a wide net to include any place “… where food or beverages of any kind are sold for consumption on the premises,” Discrimination also includes places with “schools of special instruction, or nursery schools, or day care centers or children’s camps” Those provisions alone include thousands of Washington churches. Since the marriage laws of Washington have never referenced discrimination before, this so-called “Gay Marriage Equality” bill will change everything.
The church that I pastor would probably have at least twenty different avenues from which we could be attacked under this proposed Gay Marriage Equality law. Our refusal to have gay weddings is labeled as “discriminatory” under this law even though we would be theoretically exempted from prosecution from the government “unless…”
However, the “discriminatory” label would deprive a church like ours of grants and gifts from any organizations which have a policy against “discrimination defined by law.” One only has to remember United Way’s hostile treatment of the Boy Scouts decision prohibiting gay scout leaders. That is the future of religious freedom as well.
The bill is very deceptive about its intentions.
Several places it claims to protect religious freedom and to respect clergy and religious institutions. This is pure propaganda of the worst sort.
It is democracy Soviet style:
- Say one thing and do another.
- Say you are protecting churches but label their actions as discriminatory and make them subject to the criminal laws on discrimination.
- Say that no state agency or local government can penalize an organization if a minister refuses to marry a gay but threaten the church with a claim for damages or cause of action if they don’t rent to gays for weddings or receptions.
The Gay Marriage Equality bill touts the narrow religious exemption to deceive the gullible while hiding the cause for legal actions under the wide net of the discrimination clause. The velvety call for equality hides the iron fist reserved for religious holdouts.
