Who Has The Right to Say What Consitutes Marrage?

So right wing pseudo-historian David Barton, in an interview conducted by televangelist Kennith Copeland, believes that no government can ever legalize same sex marriage because "we have an inalienable right to marriage to be a man and a woman and no other combination.  The short statement  below gives a verbatim of what he said.

right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton

right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton

right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton

right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton

right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton

right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton

right-wing pseudo-historian David Barto

right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton

I think this good that he said that.  Please understand that he's not right in what he said and what he said is very.  No argument there.  The reason I like this statement is because its bluntly telling of where this push against LGBT rights is truly coming from.

The problem is that this is purely a religious stance and it always has been.  The only people that actually believe that gay marriage should be politically banned.  The problem with that idea is politics are not supposed to take a religious posture under the constitution.   Article one also known as the first amendment talks about the freedom of expression and religion.  Focusing on the point it makes on the freedom of religion, expression of it, is specifically says that no law would respecting the establishment of relgion was to be made, nor the prohibiting the freedom of exercise of it.

That's a very important couple of points to be had out of those statements.  First of all, and many liberal progressives have rightly made this argument, that because anti gay marriage political pulls are purely religious based and not scientific, they should be allowed to marry under federal law since neither the church nor the state are allowed to establish a religious stance as the legal standard.  The other point that is that religion must be allowed to be freely exercised.

This causes a problem because once gay marriage becomes  a fact of federal law, and it will gay and lesbian couples will be able to legally marry everywhere but at the same time, most people who are authorized to preform a marriage are people in the clergy.  The question that comes to mind, should they be required to preform a marriage that under their religious beliefs they cant preform.  I would say no.

What needs to happen is more people outside of the religious element needs to be legally approved, however that process is done, to conduct wedding ceremonies. That way, we dont have to worry about the argument that the government is forcing religion to conduct these marriages against their beliefs.

That's not to say that businesses should be allowed to turn away based on the owners religious beliefs.  They are not a religious element, they are a business that's licensed by the government and is bound to proper federal business law.  In that religions should not be allowed to essentially copy-write and trademark the term "marriage" as if they are the only people who can use that term.  Marriage is marriage regardless if its under federal law or under a religious institution.

The ultimate point is marriage is not a purely religious term, despite what leaders of the religious attempt to portray. They dont get to change the definition though legal political means to make themselves more comfortable in the world. To do so violates the principles this country was founded on.