Reclaiming religion from the right: A same gender marriage amicus brief filed today [View all]

[Ms. Toad]

The 11th I've participated in, as a member of the ad hoc committee for my faith based LGBT organization, starting with Windsor. This one even names me, specifically. (As long as you're reasonably friendly with me I'll point you to the cite if you PM me. My name is obviously very public in connection with LGBT issues, but I don't publicly connect my real life name with my DU name.)

More than a century ago, this Court held that “marriage is often termed . . . a civil contract . . . and does not require any religious ceremony for its solemnization.” Maynard, 125 U.S. at 210. Amici are therefore mindful that their own theological perspectives on marriage are distinct from the civil law on marriage. Recognizing that civil and religious marriage necessarily are two different things, and further undercutting any claim that religion speaks with one voice on marriage, many religions—including those represented by Amici here—have distinct positions supporting equal civil marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Amici do not suggest that their spiritual views on civil marriage equality should be imposed on anyone else. Rather, they present some of their beliefs here to counter the notion that any one segment of the religious community can claim divine or some other universally normative authority as a basis for exclusively reserving civil marriage for heterosexual couples—as, for example, some amici suggest by stating that their “theological perspectives, though often differing, converge on a critical point: that the traditional
husband-wife definition of marriage is vital to the welfare of children, families, and society. [Such f]aith communities . . . are among the essential pillars of this Nation’s marriage culture.” Undersigned Amici—including nearly 2,000 individual religious leaders spanning a rich diversity of American faith traditions—submit that their faith communities, too, are among the pillars supporting the institution of marriage in America. Amici therefore respectfully urge the Court to bear this diversity in mind when assessing the broad cultural implications of the decision it must reach in these cases, at this juncture of American history.

http://www.kramerlevin.com/files/upload/Brief_Obergefell.pdf