A question about the opponents of gay marriage

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Opponent of SSM:  "Allowing the gay couple next door to get married violates my religious freedom."

Observant Jew:  "Allowing my neighbor to eat shrimp with cheese violates my religious freedom."

Observant Catholic:  "Don't allow my neighbor to eat steak on Friday.  It's against my religion."

All three arguments are equally idiotic.

One distinction is that unlike the preparation of food, we have traditionally allowed persons performing a religious marriage to simultaneously perform a civil marriage, thereby conflating the two in the minds of many.  Hence redefining civil marriage is seen by some as redefining religious marriage.  It really isn't, but perhaps the distinction could be made clearer by separating civil and religious marriage so that one person does not perform both roles.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Wulfric is set to become one of our greatest sources of comedy.

While I think English is not your first language, I had thought you were fluent enough to know the meaning of "comedy".

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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Who ever said gay people were bad?

If someone supports a ban on gay marriage or supports any law that discourages homosexuality, they obviously have a problem with homosexuality.  If homosexuality is wrong, then presumably, there's something wrong with gay people.

That assumes that the only purpose of a marriage is to unify two people into one relationship.  While even before the recent push for the recognition of SSM by governments it had largely devolved to only that aspect as far as civil law was concerned, whose who advocate limiting marriage to OSM generally don't have that view.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

bedstuy, the idea that is the basis of your last post: that secularism is inherently rational and objective; it is laughable.  Secularism is just as prone as any other -ism to disparate treatment of groups.

The reason for extending government recognition to all marriages regardless of the genders of the two people is not secularism but that our constitution has made the philosophical choice to be biased in favor of equal treatment over other factors a society might choose to use in deciding policy, regardless of the rationality of them when applied to a specific policy.  I happen to think that philosophical choice is a good one, but I'm not about to claim it is a rational choice.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

bedstuy, the idea that is the basis of your last post: that secularism is inherently rational and objective; it is laughable.  Secularism is just as prone as any other -ism to disparate treatment of groups.

The reason for extending government recognition to all marriages regardless of the genders of the two people is not secularism but that our constitution has made the philosophical choice to be biased in favor of equal treatment over other factors a society might choose to use in deciding policy, regardless of the rationality of them when applied to a specific policy.  I happen to think that philosophical choice is a good one, but I'm not about to claim it is a rational choice.

Alright.  How did you get that from what I wrote?  That clearly is not what I said.  I know you like being willfully obtuse, but I don't follow you.

Here's my point yet again:

If the only basis for a law is that it conforms to religious doctrine, it has no rational basis.  I think that's an obvious consequence of the 1st Amendment.

This is how I got that:

You need to have a secular basis for any law.

And you just reinforced with your last post your equation of secularism with rationalism by asserting that religion is nonrational.

The consequence of the 1st Amendment is not that religious reasons are nonrational, nor is it that religious doctrines cannot be used to choose various policy positions of the government.  Rather it is the limited consequence that you cannot be required to worship in a particular manner or to pay the costs of a particular religion.

While it is not how we've chosen to do things here in the US, I think the scheme common to many European countries, of paying a religious tax with the taxed getting to choose which religion is thereby funded by the tax collected from them would not be unconstitutional here.  Only if the government controlled which churches could be funded would it be repugnant to the 1st amendment. (And by religion, I include the religions of secular humanism and atheism.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Why is "thou shalt not make graven images" irrational?  It's perfectly rational if one believes in one of the Abrahamic religions.

Maybe you're thinking of something like a generalized Blaine Amendment or the French concept of laïcité. but those aren't part of the US constitution.  Here is what is in there:

Amendment I:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

A hypothetical law banning the making of graven images would indeed fail the first amendment, tho one banning the use of government funds to do so would not. Nor would one that disbursed government funds to religions to on the basis of individual preferences, even if it were used for making graven images by some religions.  The first amendment does not ban religion in government, it bans an establishment of religion, that is a state church which espouses a specific set of doctrines and beliefs.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

With those legislative findings, of course it wouldn't pass muster, but laws that ban or regulate practices or activities that happen to be religious are perfectly constitutional as per Employment Division v. Smith as long as the reasoning given is not religious.  That's why the Federal Government passed RFRA and many states passed similar laws.

Those who favor laws giving state recognition to only opposite-sex marriages have put forth non-religious reasons for doing so, tho strictly speaking those reasons aren't necessary as nonrecognition is not a punishment, nor does it interfere with people not in opposite-sex relationships from being married.  It isn't the First Amendment that does those laws in, but the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Incidentally, having thought on it some, the French policy of laïcité would be unconstitutional in this country.  It makes secularism the established religion of France.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Those who favor laws giving state recognition to only opposite-sex marriages have put forth non-religious reasons for doing so,

Nope!  That's why they've lost.  They can't say strictly, same-sex marriage should be illegal because of the Bible, so they've had to attempt to find a basis aside from religion or animus.  I would submit that the anti-SSM side has failed to do that.

Bedstuy, the opponents of government recognition of SSM have put forth non-religious arguments for their position.  You may not find them persuasive, and compared to the principle of equal protection, I don't either, but without the Fourteenth Amendment, there would be no constitutional basis for a court to insist upon equal protection taking priority other concerns a legislature chooses to consider.

tho strictly speaking those reasons aren't necessary as nonrecognition is not a punishment,

No.  That's not how the American legal system works.  Where are you getting that from?  When you just boldly make stuff up, I can't really have a discussion with you.  The 14th Amendment applies to the entire body of law, right?  But, you've decided that it only applies to punishments or penalties from the government?  OK.  In your fantasy land, maybe you have a point, but I thought we were discussing the real world.

Why were you bringing up the 14th, we were discussing the 1st. And as I already pointed out, the 1st is not an absolute ban on religion in government.  Speaking of the real world, the government is all the time choosing to provide benefits to some and not to all.  Indeed, without that ability to discriminate between recipients, much of the machinery of the modern welfare state would be effectively too expensive to implement.

It isn't the First Amendment that does those laws in, but the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

OK, that's not what I said.  I said that the First Amendment limits the permissible bases for banning gay marriage, specially excluding the basis, "Christianity forbids sodomy." 

We were discussing same-sex marriage, not sodomy.  The two aren't the same.  The non-religious reasons for not recognizing same-sex marriage have not dependent upon the idea that sodomy is in some way bad.  (Tho some do advance that argument, it is not the only argument.)

I think one difference in what we are talking about is that you are assuming marriage requires government recognition to be a marriage, and I'm definitely not making that assumption.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Income tax deductions, credits, rates exemption, and estimates
Wages of an employee working for one's spouse are exempt from federal unemployment tax[3]
Access to "family only" services, such as reduced rate memberships to clubs & organizations or residency in certain neighborhoods
Preferential hiring for spouses of veterans in government jobs
Tax-free transfer of property between spouses (including on death) and exemption from "due-on-sale" clauses.
Joint tax filing
Spousal non-resident tuition deferential waiver
Right to change surname upon marriage
Renewal and termination rights to spouse's copyrights on death of spouse

wulfric, i'm really confused as to why you think a gay relationship isn't in and of itself sinful, but a gay relationship that enjoys these benefits is…

Would it be any different than someone who thinks abortion is a sin but that government shouldn't prohibit it?  By your way of thinking all Roman Catholics should either support banning abortion or find another church. That said, it is an awfully odd list.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

bedstuy, the problem with rational basis is that there never has been an objective definition of it.  It always is what the court thinks it is.  I come at this from the viewpoint of a democratic libertarian (small d and small l).  I don't think the government should do too much, yet I also think that unless there are objectively determinable reasons, the judiciary should defer to the legislative (or the executive as the case may be) in deciding what is to be done and leave it to the voters to correct problems.

The only other point of yours I wish to address is where do you get the idea that the 1st amendment is ever needed (or used) to support the 14th amendment. The only way I could see you thinking so would be if by some odd reason you neglect the 9th amendment so that only explicitly named groups get equal protection, in which case same-sex couples would be out of luck.  But beyond that, the 1st amendment has been and continues to be used to exclude religious groups (and now thanks to Hobby Lobby, religious people) from being required to engage in equal treatment.

(As an aside, while Hobby Lobby produced an absurd result, once the Obama administration allowed religious groups to opt out of the contraceptive mandate on the basis of a religious objection in hopes of defusing a political hot potato, the Hobby Lobby result was fairly inevitable given Citizen United's view that legally corporations are people too.  The free exercise clause is an individual right, not one enjoyed only by organized religious bodies.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The only other point of yours I wish to address is where do you get the idea that the 1st amendment is ever needed (or used) to support the 14th amendment. The only way I could see you thinking so would be if by some odd reason you neglect the 9th amendment so that only explicitly named groups get equal protection, in which case same-sex couples would be out of luck.  But beyond that, the 1st amendment has been and continues to be used to exclude religious groups (and now thanks to Hobby Lobby, religious people) from being required to engage in equal treatment.

(As an aside, while Hobby Lobby produced an absurd result, once the Obama administration allowed religious groups to opt out of the contraceptive mandate on the basis of a religious objection in hopes of defusing a political hot potato, the Hobby Lobby result was fairly inevitable given Citizen United's view that legally corporations are people too.  The free exercise clause is an individual right, not one enjoyed only by organized religious bodies.)

What?  This isn't about religious groups.  This is about marriage law.  I don't understand what you're talking about at all.

You're the one who keeps bringing up the 1st Amendment as if it has relevance to this issue.  The 14th is perfectly capable of dealing with it all on its own.  Also, don't confuse my dislike of the rational basis test with an opposition to striking down bans on the recognition of SSM.  Civil marriage today is a partnership of two individuals.  There's absolutely nothing in the definition used that is dependent upon the gender of the individuals involved.  Now, if we were back in the 19th century when the definition of marriage included distinct legal roles for husband and wife would not necessarily fall foul of equal protection.  (To the degree it would, it would only be because of a determination that limiting the role of husband and/or wife to only one gender failed equal protection.)