My favorite part about this is: We get to see who's who.
Indeed: who shares the view of the ruling class, and who shares the Christian view of marriage?
Tell me more about how you hate the 14th amendment. Tell me more about how government should define marriage.
If the government is going to define marriage, it should have the right definition. There is a very strong case that if a state is being forced to have a wrong definition it would be preferable to simply abolish civil marriage licenses in that state than participate in a lie. Some GOP states are moving in that direction.
Obviously conservatives and liberals interpret the 14th Amendment differently. Liberals believe that the meaning of the words morph as needed to achieve liberal policy goals. Conservatives mainly do not: usually, the original understanding plays a role in a conservative theory of interpretation. As far as I know, same-sex marriage was not discussed in the 14th Amendment ratification debates. Pretty easy.
I understood the Court's decision to be about permitting same-sex couples to participate in the institution of marriage. Polyamory is not marriage, it's something else, and no one is permitted to participate in it. There is no exclusion happening, in the sense that some people can have a legitimate plural marriage and others can't. Plus, there's a long history of abuse that's wrapped up in plural marriage; most people in this country view the idea through the lens of polygamist Mormons or Islam. I just don't see it. Never have.
Polyamory
is not marriage- so what? Until a couple days ago same-sex marriage
was not marriage in most states.
There was no "exclusion" happening in a conjugal definition of marriage, either:
nobody was permitted to marry a member of the same sex.
The main argument in support of same-sex marriage -which five members of the Supreme Court have accepted- is that each person must be allowed to marry in accordance with their sexual appetite. Some people are "bisexual"- they want to marry members of each sex for this reason. Others maintain that they are "poly." Are you going to tell them that they are wrong? Nobody's "sexual orientation" can be verified objectively.
Of all the possible routes to the result it sought, the Supreme Court chose the most pro-polyamory one.
As for tax exemptions, the author never really spells out why the logic of the gay marriage decisions should lead to denying tax-exempt status to religious organizations that don't recognize it (the main purpose of the article seems just to be to explain why religious tax exemptions are generally difficult to administer and absurd in some cases, not to make any point about same-sex marriage or the same-sex marriage decision), and I don't see it. What is the rationale? Obviously a religious organization is not required to compromise its religious beliefs to comport with the Supreme Court's rulings on the 14th Amendment. It won't be required to celebrate same-sex marriages. No matter how you understand the religion clauses, they prevent coercion of religious practice. Are we worried about insuring a gay employee's spouse? BFD.
The logic is this:
(1) If we don't allow religious institutions (not churches, but schools, charities, etc.) that discriminate on the basis of race to have tax-exempt status, we should not allow religious institutions that discriminate on the basis of sexual behavior/orientation to have tax-exempt status.
(2) We don't allow religious institutions (not churches, but schools, charities, etc.) that discriminate on the basis of race to have tax-exempt status.
(3) Therefore, we should not allow religious institutions that discriminate on the basis of sexual behavior/orientation to have tax-exempt status.
Many Catholic schools, charities, etc., would not hire someone who is in a same-sex relationship. Notre Dame does not have such a policy, although it will not perform a same-sex wedding in a campus chapel, which will certainly raise problems.
Most liberals believe that tax exemptions are "subsidies"- in other words, the government is entitled to all of your money, and only lets you keep it at its pleasure. They do not want to "subsidize" "discrimination."
Now in my experience the ND administration's priorities are first money, then academic reputation (in the eyes of the Ivy League), and then winning football games, and then, quite a bit further down the line, the Catholic character of the school. They are not going to want to get into a fight over this, but it may be out of their control soon.
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