Court did not go far enough

As a long-time supporter of same-sex marriage, I was glad to see the Supreme Court rule in favor of nationwide marriage equality. But the decision missed an opportunity to resolve the issue once and for all.

The court’s decision won’t end the conflict. Some supporters of traditional marriage will be sore losers, and their calls for a constitutional amendment will be a useless distraction. What worries me more is that sore winners will shift from celebration to retribution. Will sincere religious objection to same-sex marriage be labeled hate speech and persecuted, as we saw in the boycott of Chick-Fil-A and the virtual lynching of the former CEO of Mozilla? I hope religious conservatives and LGBT activists will move on, but I don’t see this happening.

We can expect legal fallout as the balance between marriage equality and religious freedom gets sorted out. For instance, will faith-based nonprofits be denied government grants if they are affiliated with churches that refuse to perform same-sex marriages? Will we see more litigation that pits the government against kindly nuns? The Supremes probably not have seen the last of this issue.

The core issue the court failed to address is the artifact of government jurisdiction over what every religion considers a sacrament. The state’s only necessary function is to oversee a legal contract that confers spousal rights. Calling this contract “marriage” invites people to conflate the government with their church and empowers politicians to act like Sixteenth Century theocrats.

If we’re serious about the separation of church and state, let’s end government-sanctioned marriage and replace it with a spousal contract. That way, any two people could register as spouses at City Hall and then get married, or not, in the church of their choice. Churches would get their sacrament back, and if some churches refuse to perform gay weddings that’s their business.

I’m disappointed the Supreme Court missed an opportunity to resolve this issue once and for all. Getting government out of the marriage business might be a legal stretch, but Silly Putty interpretations of the Constitution are nothing new.