Marriage Equality

Studies show increased religious support for same sex marriage among a variety of religious groups in the recent decade. Some 42 percent of Muslims support freedom to marry, but only 28 percent of Mormons and evangelical Christians favor same-sex marriage rights. About 84 percent of Buddhists, 77 percent of American Jews, and more than 68 percent of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and members of the United Church of Christ support gay marriage. An interfaith group filed a brief with the Supreme Court in favor of same-sex marriage rights, with 2,000 leaders signing on in support of freedom to marry.

Michigan Works to Shut Down Some Families

A series of bills passed by a senate committee in Michigan would allow faith-based adoption agencies to refuse service if their religious values are threatened. In cases of same-sex couples or unmarried partners, the adoption workers could justify refusal to work with prospective parents on a claim that their religious values would be compromised if they were to help with the adoption.

Recuse and Refer

Both supporters and opponents of marriage and family freedom testified for and against the bills for two hours in the committee before the vote. One of the sponsors of the bill clarified that it is incorrect to say that the adoption agency may “refuse” the service. “It’s more appropriate to say recuse and refer. They need to be able to recuse themselves from adoptions that would go against their faith based beliefs.”

A reverend in the Detroit Cooperative Parish who is working to adopt two children with his husband took offense. “It offends me that my taxpayer dollars are going to an agency that feels I’m not worthy of being a parent,” he said.

Why Compound Trauma?

Noting that the children who are seeking homes and support have already suffered unknown traumas and rejections, one expert asks, “Why would we compound their trauma and keep them from a stable, loving home,” simply because a social worker’s religious choices lead to discriminating against entire classes of potential parents from the outset?

More than half of the state and federal monies that went to support agencies for adoption and foster care services were granted to faith-based adoption agencies, which would be free to discriminate under the new proposed bills.

Many Friends of Marriage Equality Among Religions

Signing on to a friend of the court brief in favor of same-sex marriage rights, thousands of religious leaders and groups added their support, including:

• United Church of Christ
• Union for Reform Judaism
• Universalist Unitarian Association
• Muslims for Progressive Values
• Methodists
• Quakers
• Lutherans

The arguments in the brief take on what had been thought to be the standard religious view of issues of homosexuality and religion with perspectives of tolerance from people of faith.

The Secular Promise Of Equal Protection

“No one view speaks for ‘religion,'” as the brief of the faiths in favor of same-sex marriage rights notes. Many religious groups and communities in the country have seen a significant increase in advocacy within organizations to recognize LGBT rights and marriage equality.

The U.S. constitution forbids the government from establishing a religion, and also from prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The 14th amendment to the constitution promises equal protection under the law for all citizens.

Extending Equality

While some claim that religious views compel them to class certain persons in a group that can be discriminated against in marriage and adoption, others differ. Human beings feature an immense diversity of unique beliefs and customs. Many in society seem to want to have marriage both ways — as a “religious” event that must be shielded from government intervention, and after the ceremony, as the key to a wide range of rights and benefits that civil society can confer on a couple, from hospital visitation privileges that are different for a spouse than for any other loved one, to insurance benefits that cover married couples but not people who just live together, and on and on. The effect of marriage continues on long after the church bells have stopped ringing following the ceremony, so equality and justice demand that it be open to those who desire it.