I think there may be some talking past each other here, and confusion as to what the nub of the issue is, confusion which I think I may share.
Is the gravamen of the complaint here, that the churches rent their space out for weddings, and thus if they say no to gay weddings, that is discrimination? Surely, there would be no issue if the churches only had wedding ceremonies for their members, or which were performed by their own clergy, right?
Assuming they do rent the space out to third parties, I think we have a close case here, with two rights in conflict (freedom of religious expression, and freedom from discrimination), which always makes it tough.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright: "Act 1, thus, contains 'immunity' from fines or penalties if a pastor, such as Harris, refuses to perform a civil union (if such refusal would otherwise constitute illegal discrimination)," the 17-page decision states (parentheses in original). "Act 1 does not, however, contain 'immunity' if a church or other religious organization refuses - on the basis that it is opposed to civil unions - to rent or otherwise allow use of its facilities for performing civil unions or hosting receptions celebrating a civil union."
basically, if the pastor is opposed to it, he is immune and can walk away...but the church itself is not immune if it doesn't allow it's facilities (chapel and/or reception hall) to be used, whether it be rented or otherwise.
so, if a church allows weddings and/or receptions to take place on church property, it would be in violation of the law for refusing to allow gay couples to use the facilities for gay unions.
If a church is already renting out its facilities or granting their use otherwise to a couple getting married (or civil union-ed) but not married in the church in a spiritual sense, then what difference does it make? Or are the churches in question seeking to avoid renting the space to any couple who would be ineligible for marriage in that church (in the spiritual sense)? I would assume that some random couple off the street who are not members of the church cannot simply walk into a church and demand to use its facilities, right?
Assuming this is the case, in my eyes any marriage conducted outside of the Church (in the spiritual sense) being conducted in the church (in the physical sense) bothers me. I do find the idea of the government stepping in and requiring a church to rent out its space to someone for an activity against the church's teachings bothersome, but not that awfully worse than the idea of someone using the church for a wedding not in the Church (in the spiritual sense) to begin with, absent some sort of agreement with another church with some kind of relationship between the churches.
It does seem like this thread has really deviated from the issue at hand quite a bit, and the thing that really bothers me about the responses in here was that there seems to be a desire on some levels to attack churches in general or attempt to strip away federal funding on extraneous things to change doctrine, thereby creating a system where the government will fund some religious groups but not others on the basis of what the group's religious beliefs are rather than what the funding is for, or to remove tax-exempt status from religious organizations because they disagree with the religion's teachings or other threads in which people have advocated abolishing non-public schooling. Essentially, I understand the government is not an instrument capable or willing to solve many of the social problems churches have with their members no longer believing in or following church teachings, but passionately dispise any attempt to use the government as a tool to destroy organized religion or make it more difficult for parents to raise their children in the faith or make it such that those who do still practice a religious faith that many now find politically objectionable are quarantined from society so that society will simply wait for all of us to die off broken and isolated as the obsolete victims of the unyielding arc of "social progress".
