To anyone opposed to gay marriage claiming that their opposition is anything but religious in nature: stop it, no one is fooled, and your arguments make you sound dumb. If your real position is that NO marriage should be legislated, and that marriage is a personal decision between two people that doesn’t require the state’s permission, then I agree with you, but also realize that under the current system where that’s not the case, equality under an unjust law is better than inequality under an unjust law.
To those opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds: great, don’t get married to anyone of the same sex. You don’t, however, have any right to impose your faith on anyone else, including through the failure to execute the duties of a public, tax-funded position whose duty, by law, is to facilitate the law… and yes, the supreme court’s interpretation of law IS law – that’s how it works, and how it has always worked, by the framers’ design. I didn’t hear you complaining or decrying the validity of their rulings when they ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, did I?
To those wishing to impose their faith on others through legislation while also using words like “freedom” and “liberty”: Either you want a FREE country or a Theocracy (look it up), but you can’t pretend you want both. It doesn’t work that way. You clearly need lessons in both history and government, but I’m not going to impose education on you. You have every right to be ignorant, but please, stay out of the way of others’ pursuit of happiness when it has nothing to do with you and doesn’t hurt you in any way.
Your faith isn’t under attack. What’s under attack are the elements of inequality still present in the system, and those that have been added over the years when the faithful have gained ground toward converting the country from a democratic republic into a theocracy (“God” was added to the money and the pledge in the 1950s… again, look it up).
No one is telling you that you can’t practice your faith, speak openly about your faith, or live by the laws of your faith, so long as doing so doesn’t hurt anyone else or infringe on their rights – THAT is what the country was founded on. Contrary to what your pastor tells you, the country was not founded by Christians as a Christian nation based on the bible. Only one founder was a Christian, and most were deists who openly spoke against Christianity. Only 3 commandments even resemble western law, and those 3 are clearly common sense (don’t kill, steal, or lie), present in almost every culture’s law since the dawn of recorded history itself, and most likely stemmed from the implied social contracts of cave people.
This country was founded by libertarian rebels as a religiously-free country where anyone could openly and safely practice their religion (or lack thereof) without fear of persecution, SO LONG AS it didn’t involve hurting anyone else or infringing on their rights.
I don’t know who said it originally, but I love the quote going around facebook asking if the religious right would support the “religious liberty” of a Muslim clerk refusing to issue drivers’ licenses to women or a vegan clerk refusing to issue hunting and fishing licenses. Ye of faith, ask yourself that question honestly, and if the answer is yes, great, at lease you’re consistent, but you still have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of religious freedom. If the answer is no, then admit to yourself that you DON’T support freedom – you support, in this case, Christian law as the law of the land… and that and freedom cannot co-exist. If that’s your game, be honest about it, and get your message straight.
If freedom is your game, start acting like it, and stop caring so much about other people’s personal lives.
Lastly, to the good Christians out there, and I know many: it’s time to start policing your own. In the same way that bad cops are making life hard for all cops, ISIS is making life hard for Muslims, and pedophiles have turned the priesthood into a punchline, these people are giving a bad name to a faith which you purport to be about love, forgiveness, and the principles taught by Jesus, your central figure. The onus is on you to speak out against them using your faith as a battle-flag for bigotry and ignorance.