Marriage, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Equality

The historic June 26 decision on marriage equality has given the LGBT community and our country a new civil right, placing it firmly alongside Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), and Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). However, history has shown that even the most important decisions can still create challenges when people attempt to exercise their newfound rights. Unfortunately, equality does not mean acceptance and the reality is that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling will likely only produce new conflicts and intensify old ones. The most important new conflict will be in deciding where our 14th Amendment right to marriage granted to us in the Constitution begins and where others’ First Amendment right to religious liberties ends? In other words, how do we balance the two in a way that advances the freedoms this country was founded on: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately for us, the religious right isn’t actually working to find that balance. Instead, they will use this as their crux to continue denying LGBT individuals the rights they’ve been denying us all along.

The minute the decision came down, states like Mississippi, Texas and Alabama refused to issue marriage licenses and other states are introducing laws that allow clerks to refuse to sign or issue a marriage license based on religious objections. For instance, in Louisiana, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, a possible 2016 presidential contender, plans to support his state’s Marriage and Conscience Act. The legislation would be a license to the private sector to refuse, for religious or moral reasons, to recognize same-sex marriages and provide an “out” for public-sector employees to avoid having to sanction gay marriages. While the law tries to ensure that an LGBT couple can proceed through the required steps, it’s possible (and actually likely) that all of the clerks in a particular county could refuse on religious grounds, thereby forcing people to shop from county to county in search of someone willing to sign their marriage license. Moreover, there is no notice provision required and, as such, the lack of notice will surely cause public embarrassment when a couple shows up to the county clerk and are denied in front of everyone.