Justice Scalia in his dissenting opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 DOMA ruling.
Heritage Foundation has published a research piece examining the potential for conflict between religious liberty and same-sex “marriage.”
We have written about examples of this conflict before–specifically when it comes to bakers, florists, and photographers forced by courts to participate in same-sex weddings or face severe penalties. In fact, this loss of religious liberty was called by one judge, “the price of citizenship.”
Heritage Foundation writes,
“Legal recognition of same-sex marriage will increase the potential for conflicts with religious freedom. The recent Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor intensifies these concerns by characterizing traditional marriage policy as a form of irrational prejudice.”
In the column, Heritage outlines examples of ways religious liberties have been affected by same-sex marriage, including:
- The religious liberties of counselors;
- Religious adoption services;
- Conscientious objections to artificial insemination.
Heritage also highlights a growing body of legal cases over charitable donations and tax-exemptions, including a Catholic adoption service Americans United for the Separation of Church and State argued would need to give up its tax-exempt status if it wanted the freedom to opt not to place adoptive children with same-sex couples.
Concerning these and other situations, Heritage writes,
In some states, faith-based charities have stopped providing adoption or foster care services or both because of government regulations forcing every provider to place children with same-sex couples. Faith-based charities have been forced to stop providing services in Illinois, Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts. … Forcing faith-based charities out of the social service sector because they will not provide services that contradict their faith produces the absurd result of decreasing services through a policy purportedly designed to increase them.
