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In reply to the discussion: Todd Starnes: ministers who don't perform gay weddings should prepare for hate crimes charges [View all]Hekate
(90,189 posts)....because I'm not Jewish? Or Roman Catholic priests? That's been going on forever. It has always been the Constitutional right of any clergy to decide who they will and will not perform sacred rites for.
I'm so bloody sick and tired of the hateful ignorance of folks who willfully misunderstand how separation of church and state protects them. I think it's past time for the U.S. to make the issuance of marriage licenses and wedding certificates an entirely secular matter the way it's done in other countries, and take that part of it out of the hands of religion. Marriage is a legal contract, so do it at City Hall. If you want a religious blessing and a big ceremony, wonderful -- go to a minister, priest, rabbi, imam, priestess, or whatever and do that as well. But don't let them be the arbiters of who gets to have that legal contract in the first place, because that is not their job.