The Religious Exemption to the New York Same-Sex Marriage Bill

WOO HOOO!! 🙂

great news 🙂

In 1990 my fiance and I were trying to find a place to get married. She wanted a more traditional setting, while I did not really care. She was a theist, but I was an atheist. We looked at a few of the more liberal churches, one (I forget which flavor) was promising… until I said I was an atheist. He said “I could perform the marriage if you worshiped anything – and ant, sheep, anything. But if you don’t worship anything, I can’t do anything for you.”

You know what? It was his church, and his prerogative, and I was fine with that. We ended up being married by a friend who was a notary public (NPs could perform marriages in Florida).

So, a bunch of folks who believe a magical sky ghost and base those beliefs on a book written 1800 years ago (as well as others who hold similarly ridiculous beliefs) don’t want to perform marriages on two people who are in love. That’s cool – as long as the state itself has process in which those two lovers can be married.

Well, churches have always had the right to refuse to perform any particular marriage. But, if they need it in writing. Again. They can have it.

Thank you for the wording and the explanation. It was helpful to not diminish the loveliness and joy that I feel right now with the disgust of those who put every ‘just in case’ clause in there as well.

Its a wonderful night!

Most of us didn’t want to get married in one of their silly temples anyway.

Party time!

I’m with Chris on this one, but I think it goes even further. If we grab only one stream of thought from section 2 of the document:

“nothing in this article shall limit or diminish the right […] of any religious or denominational institution […] to give preference to persons of the same religion or denomination or from taking such action as is calculated by such organization to promote the religious principles for which it is established or maintained.”

I read this as a wide-open invitation for all sorts of nasty things. Don’t want to allow gay couples to adopt? Perfectly fine, as you’re allowed to do whatever will ‘promote your religious principles.’ That’s just one nasty side effect of this bill – I’m sure more cynical minds would find quite a number of others.

I’m also fine with the exemption. I agree people should not be forced into officiating a marriage they don’t approve of — and what couple would even want such an officiant? Religious bigotry is unlikely to change; I’m thrilled that Republican bigotry just took a little vacation. 😀

Besides, New York has no shortage of LGBT-friendly churches and congregations. (I know, this argument won’t work in a lot of places.)

Religious exemptions are already in the law regarding marriage – ex. if you were married in a catholic church, divorced, and try to marry someone else in the church, they will not perform that ceremony. If you are both baptists and wanted to be married by a jewish rabbi in a synagogue, he/she would probably not do it. As for foster care, adoptions, etc., these organizations can still discriminate on whatever basis they want, they just can’t receive taxpayer money for it. Those exemptions really are meaningless – I think the legislators were tossing a bone to the theists, while tossing the steak to the progressives.

Now we get to watch the bishops’ heads explode, leaving their mitres (bishops hats) laying on the ground – tee hee hee!

Well, time to get my celebrant certification.

The religious exceptions are a bit problematic. The general rule is that religious groups can discriminate when they’re operating as religious groups, but if they’re operating in a secular capacity, they have to comply with secular laws. So a church can discriminate when its behaving as a church, but if it opens up a fruit stand it has to comply with all secular laws that cover any other fruit stand since the operation of a fruit stand is not a religious activity.

This changes that rule, and permits religious groups to engage in secular activities, or even “supervise” otherwise secular charitable organizations, and then discriminate in operating them both in their internal operation and in the services provided.

So when the prop 8 trial makes it to the Supreme Court and they pass marriage equality for the entire country, these discriminatory ‘exemptions’ will be dropped/challenged and this will all get sorted out. So enjoy your two years of State money without having to follow State anti-discrimination rules!! That’s all you’ll have.

They ARE extra protections. Remember the case catholic charities lost in IL to the tune of 33mil in State money when they decided to close instead of letting married gays adopt?? That is what they wanted to prevent in NY, unintended consequences.

This is wonderful. Once again, I got to watch history happen in real time. Another tentacle loosens in religion’s death grip on humanity.

Barring any unforeseen negative implications, I’m not just okay with the religious exemptions, I’m glad they’re there. The churches will just exempt themselves more and more out of people’s lives. People will have less and less need of their “services” and their input will be less and less relevant.

Some day, not so far off any more, when the Shamans disapprove of something, society’s overall response will be, “So?” Not so long after that, the overall response will be “Who?”

PJB863: thanks, your explanation makes me feel better.

Richard, that would be a wonderful day indeed, but I don’t think you can extrapolate like that, any more than I believe you can extrapolate the rate of growth of Latinos to say that America will someday be 100% Latino/a. Religion knows how to twist and shift itself just enough to stay culturally relevant while claiming it is ‘timeless,’ and I’m certain that in 10-20 years when it is common practice they will have embraced gay marriage and want to ‘put this whole misunderstanding behind us.’ Not only that, they will attack any atheists that bring it up, claiming that we are misrepresenting them or mudslinging and that ‘it was a different time’ and their position was ‘not as enlightened’ or some such and that they shouldn’t be judged for it – sound at all familiar?

I don’t think that religious organizations using the exemptions to continue discrimination in services such as arranging adoptions will be that much of a problem, and here’s why: Secular adoption organizations will be able to compete with the churches for the state money, because they can promise better results. They will give services to all applicants, not just some. The states will say to the Catholic Charities of Such-and-Such, “Thanks anyway, but we found an agency that will serve more people for the same amount of our money. Bye.”

Let some churches be bigots. You don’t need a church to get married. Good job New York!

Richard,
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I see religion differently, as a snake that sheds its skin. People eventually become disenchanted with a religion, but for some reason that doesn’t seem to apply to religion in general. As time goes on, we’ve seen religions again and again fall by the wayside, only to be replaced by new sects with a slight twist on the message and none of the baggage associated with the old religion. And so Madzaism is shed like a skin, only to be replaced by Judaism which is largely replaced by Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, and any number of splinters.

So as a student of history, I remain skeptical, but I dearly hope that you are right. Perhaps in this age, with so much knowledge and communication, and with atheists like yourself not “idly and passively waiting around,” they won’t be able to pull a fast one on us anymore.

In any case, congratulations New York!

Julien, good points again. I think one important difference will be the increasingly ubiquitous internet. It’s not just a communication device which we atheists are exploiting to our advantage to form a community, it’s also an information storage and retrieval device.

Lying and double-talking politicians have still not adjusted to the internet’s ability to immediately find something they said two years ago, and instantly bring it up to show they’re contradicting themselves. “Excuse me Senator Blowhard, on May 3, 2007 in Albuquerque you said you were against this and always would be. Now you say that you have always been for it. Which is the truth?”

Those ancient religions were able to shed their skin and be free of their embarrassing past because books were very rare, soon crumbled into dust, and almost nobody could read anyway. Civilization had a very short memory. Now, with one or two clicks anyone can double check on any church leader’s mealymouthed denial of their previous positions. While the churches in a few years will try to spin, and rewrite history, and deny they were ever on the wrong side, as the saying goes, “The internet is forever.”

I think it’s fine to have a religious exemption. Churches should not have to marry people they don’t want to marry.

Some churches will perform gay weddings, and not just the MCC. I went to a gay “wedding” here in Texas performed by a minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). You know, the dudes with the chalice and foreshortened cross logo. They had filed lots of legal documents that made them essentially married. This is not quite as good as legal gay marriage. Marriage grants certain rights and powers automatically, these grooms could get these powers only through lots of paperwork.

Most romantic wedding evar. I cried when one groom sang From This Moment On to the other.

Good for New York! It will be a few years more here in Texas, but it will happen sooner than you think. Houston has a quasi-legally married gay mayor.

I share the concerns of others about exemption #2, but if that was the price of getting this through, it was worth it. And in a decade or so, when people have discovered that same-sex marriage hasn’t caused the collapse of society, and on the other hand that this exemption is encouraging religious nastiness, it can be duly swept into the dustbin of superseded laws.

Huzzah!

I’m fine with the exemptions. It would be a little hypocritical if I wasn’t, since I would prefer the government to have just “civil unions,” and leave marriage to those who want the ceremony. Barring that, marriage equality for all!

Now, who wants to help Minnesota avoid the mistake of enshrining an antiquated, bigoted notion of marriage into it’s constitution in 2012?

Great news! btw, small question, who is Albert Mohler and why should I care?

Great news! btw, small question, who is Albert Mohler and why should I care?

Well said, Timothy. That’s exactly what we will hear more and more. Anachronism becomes irrelevance, which becomes obsolescence, which becomes oblivion, which becomes extinction. Fugetaboutit.

I agree it is a good thing to have the proof. One day the christians will turn around and say they were the vanguard of gay rights and it’ll be easy to show they are liars.

“Christians have always supported gay rights and opposed slavery, and always believed the Earth went around the Sun”

– no, you haven’t.

This whole same-sex marriage has always stricken me as a “simple” definition problem.

“Marriage” refers to two separate things.
The first is a sacred covenant between a couple and the god they worship.

The second is a legal contract between a couple and their government, by which the couple agree to give each other material and financial support, and the government extends them privileges in several forms, from fiscal incentives to rights of visitation in hospitals or the right not to incriminate one’s spouse in a court of law.

I can easily understand that people claiming to speak for that god, and who sincerely believe that their god disapproves of same-sex couples, don’t want to be “forced” to marry same-sex couples, and it is their right.

But that has no bearing on the contract between a couple and their government.

The whole mess is due to the fact that the same word “marriage” covers both marriages. When the government changes the terms of applicability of the (civil) marriage contract, the religious leaders feel threatened, because the government is, in their eyes, changing something (religious marriage) over which they have authority.

So here is the solution I propose:

Step one : create a “civil union” status, which has all the rights, duties and privileges as marriage, and can be accessed by same-sex couples. I mean exactly the same deal. Copy and paste the relevant articles of law. in fact, ctrl+F the word “marriage” in the big book of las and replace all occurrences with “civil union”

step two : give the “civil union” status to all currently married couples.

step 3 : prohibit the government from ever issuing “marriage” licenses, and the churches from issuing civil union status.

step 4 : let the churches define marriage however they want. Allow couples married in churches to access the civil couple status with a simple procedure (a simple form should do). Render the marriage license legally worthless unless it is backed up by civil unionship papers. Should any business or administration grant privileges to people presenting marriage licenses but not extend the same advantages to people with civil union papers, slap them with a discrimination lawsuit so hard they have to shut down.

That way:

– The ambiguity between legal and religious marriage is lifted

– the religious people can still have their marriage.

– the same-sex couples can have all the benefits of the current definition of marriage.

– they can still lobby to have their religion of choice include them if they want, but the government does not interfere with that, as it should not.

– religiously married people add only the inconvenience of signing a single form, in exchange to keeping the exclusivity on the now-legally-worthless term “marriage”.

– Currently married people keep their marriage benefits.

– No more problem with religion and divorce, since “divorce” would no be the cessation of the civil unionship contract. Let the churches say that people are still married and should not remarry if they want.

And best of all, this solution does not require an ounce of cooperation from churches.

I’m very happy for New York, and very happy for my gay sister who lives in New York. It’s a happy day!

I don’t really see the religious exemptions as being a problem. It’ll only highlight their bigotry and make it even more obvious they’re nutters.

I find it much easier to read RCC pronouncements if I imagine them being spoken with a broad Hollywood Irish “Father Murphy” brogue. Ah, sure and ’tis a shame those nancy boyos are intrudin’ on arr sacred instytushun o’marriage, begorrah! Mother Mary an’ the saints preserve us!

Anyway, what Hemant said about the religious exemption, esp. chuch/state separation.

To all the LGBT folks making marriage plans in NY and those other few enlightened states, cheers from this breeder!

Good news everybody – my wife and I have decided to split up and leave our kids to fend for themselves because of this.

Nahh… just kidding. I turns out our marriage was totally unaffected by this. Who’d’ve thunk it?

This goes beyond simply performing a wedding.

A religiously affiliated hospital, school or university can freely discriminate against its employees. That simply shouldn’t be allowed, no matter how they are funded. I don’t know why it’s so widely accepted that churches should be able to do what they want as long as they are privately funded. Ordinary businesses are privately funded too, yet they can’t make their own laws.

There is also a non-severability clause, that says that if one section of the law is declared void in court, all of it becomes void.

Still, if that’s what it takes it’s still worth it. NYS is bigger than all of the New England states combined.

It’s a great day. Congratulations to New York and here’s hoping this accelerates matrera in other states where Christianists lack a stranglehold. The more stats have marriage the more likely state governments will unite to demand that the federal government not discriminate against certain states on the basis of their marriage laws, as nonrecognition of the true numbers of married couples will cost the states money. I really don’t like the excemptions. Not requiring a church to perform a weddding is fine but allowing a business to deny services? Why should they get to deny services to a gay couple but not to a black couple? Still if that’s what it took to get it passed it’s worth it.
Oh and fret not about the bishops. They raises holy he’ll when gay marriage was legalized here in Spain with protests and everything. In return they got… nothing. Gay marriage has been legal for years, enjoys a healthy approval rating and now civil marriages outnumber religious ones. So you guys keep showing that two adult men or women pledging their love for life worries you more than an adult man raping a young boy, see how that works out for you.

I am so excited to see gay marriage come through legislative channels instead of through the courts – it’s good to see state congresses realize that this is coming regardless and that if they want to take the credit they need to act.

marriage is the joining of one man and one woman in a lifelong, loving union that is open to children

Way to invalidate my childfree-by-choice marriage, RCC! Maybe I can get an annulment? I’d love to get rid of the religious part of my marriage without getting a civil divorce…

We got the same kind of thing in Canada a few years ago, with a similar exemption. It makes a lot of sense – you can’t force somebody to perform your marriage if they’re opposed to it, and churches have always had the right to refuse anybody else who they don’t think should be getting married (usually because they meet with the couple first and see a lot of signs of trouble). And it isn’t a problem to go to a different church to do it or to get a government official, so in my opinion everybody wins – people who are fine with it can do it, and people who aren’t are not forced to do it anyway.

@Ryan, this goes WAY beyond officiating marriages. Again…

any organization operated for charitable or educational purposes, which is operated, supervised or controlled by or in connection with a religious organization, to limit employment or sales or rental of housing accommodations or admission to or give preference to persons of the same religion or denomination

The religious exemptions are bullshit as are religious exemptions generally. The law should apply to all, regardless of faith. Every such bill passed giving religions special rights to flout the law only further entrenches this dubious concept. Religious establishments refusing to marry on grounds of faith-based bigotry should lose their right to perform marriages, period. Just imagine if the Civil Rights Act had included religious exemptions so that, “people of faith,” could continue legally refusing service to minorities.

I love this, it’s causing quite a stir among the fundies, isn’t it.

I love how the Albert Mohler wears his privilege on his sleeve – apparently it’s a sad day when something is legalized that doesn’t actually hurt him or affect his life in any meaningful way, and makes millions of people happy, just because he doesn’t believe in it.

Yay!

Chris aka “Happy Cat”: No, they can’t. You are legally the next of kin, if you are married, or civilly united. In that situation, they’d be opening themselves up to a huge lawsuit and they know it, which is why we haven’t seen this situation occur in MA, VT, CT, etc. – i.e. places where they’ve had CU’s/Marriage Equality for awhile. They may be Catholic hospitals (owned by a religious order, not the church itself), but they are incorporated as hospitals (businesses – albeit not for profit), not religious organizations.

Vystrix Nexoth wrote:

Marriage isn’t an inherently religious institution any more than government is.

On a social level, “marriage” is what counts: “will you civil-union me?” doesn’t work. So, to yield the word “marriage” to religion (as though it were their word) is to yield an important part of society to religion (as though it were theirs) and place it under their control (as though they should have it).

Let them call religious marriage “faith unions” or something.

Exactly. You nailed it.

This “let them have marriage and the secular can have civil unions” nonsense is just that….nonsense. Religion doesn’t ‘own’ marriage, no matter how long and how loudly they proclaim to.

“Besides that, though, I believe in church/state separation. Churches have every right to be bigots. The government does not.”

I’m a Christian and agree with this statement 100%. Churches don’t have to accept homosexuality, but cannot expect the government, which is secular, to do the same.

I think it is rather sweet of Archbishop Dumb Ass Dolan to openly invite ridicule.

@Epistaxis
Contrary to what Hemant suggests this goes far beyond performing weddings

Churches are indeed given a great many special rights here. Any religiously affiliated organization, school, university, hospital or business is legally allowed to discriminate against its employees. Even when they operate entirely within the secular sphere. Why should that be allowed?

One politician even wanted anyone to be allowed to discriminate based on his religious beliefs. Thankfully that didn’t go through, but the current exemptions still create plenty of loopholes.

Hemant, do you or anyone you know own a video camera? It would bring me a lot of joy to see your happy-dance.

Numfar! Do the dance of joy!

Hey, when it comes to the stuff that matters (named as next of kin, inheritance laws etc…) marriage is a legal institution, not a religious one anyway.

If people wan’t to tag the magical FSM (bless his noodly appendages), or Allah, or Jesus in their marriage then fine. But they need to do it in their own club and stop telling everyone else how to live their life.

I’m glad the bill has been passed though!

“One hundred years from now, the religionists will claim they were on the forefront of the fight for gay rights.”
Just as
“Christians have always supported gay rights and opposed slavery, and always believed the Earth went around the Sun”

Tom Paine among other “founding” fathers came out against slavery long before some Christians did. Even at the time of the Civil War, there were Christians arguing that slavery was biblically correct.

Weee: When they ask for it.

I’m concerned about the suicide-pact provision – seems to me that the religious exemptions were purposefully written to be unconstitutional, as a way to sabotage the same-sex marriage bill.