Same-sex marriage could threaten civil liberties and religious freedoms

Washington D.C., Jun 25, 2008 / 19:01 pm

Matt Daniels, Founder and President of the Alliance for Marriage, has warned that the legal recognition of same-sex marriages further threatens Americans’ civil liberties and religious freedoms, some of which have already been affected by anti-discrimination laws protecting sexual orientation.

Daniels, writing in a press release, noted that a recent National Public Radio (NPR) story broadcast on June 16 listed some incidents in which liberties have already been curtailed by laws favoring homosexual rights over the rights of people with ethical and religious objections to the normalization of homosexuality.

In its radio broadcast, NPR reported that Catholic Charities in Massachusetts has been forced to shut down its adoption program because it refused to place children with same-sex couples as required by state law.

In another case, the Jewish institution Yeshiva University in New York City banned same-sex couples from its married student dormitory due to its religious principles. New York’s highest court invalidated the school regulations as a form of unlawful discrimination.

In California a gynecologist refused to perform an in-vitro fertilization treatment on a lesbian woman due to his religious beliefs. Though the doctor referred the woman to another physician, the doctor is being sued and is likely to lose.

A photographer in New Mexico has been fined $6,600 by the New Mexico Human Rights Commission for refusing to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony, while a Methodist association in New Jersey has had a portion of its group’s tax exemption removed after a lawsuit from a lesbian couple challenged the group’s refusal to rent its boardwalk pavilion to them for a civil commitment ceremony.

“For the first time in our history, America is are faced with a powerful movement that defines its alleged ‘rights’ in terms of the deprivation of the fundamental rights of others,” Matt Daniels said. “As a result, this movement is depriving other Americans of civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, including:  freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religion.”

“Most Americans believe that gays and lesbians are free to live as they choose,” Daniels continued, “but they don’t have a right to redefine marriage for our entire society.   But we are living in an era when adhering to the common sense definition of marriage – for the sake of kids – is increasingly a punishable offense.”