I think it’s obviously a Wrong Question when phrased that way
That’s not obvious to me. Let me explain.
My understanding of who can marry whom is hazy, but as far as I know in the US it works as follows. There are two classes of people who have the power to marry. The first class is government officials and if you want a civil (non-religious) marriage, you just go to the City Hall and get married there. No problems and we’re not talking about those people. The second class is priests/ministers/rabbis/imams/etc. of a recognized religion.
The thing is, Bob Smith as a plain-vanilla citizen has no right to marry anyone. Even is he opens a business and calls it Bob’s Wedding Shack, he still has no right to marry anyone. He can only marry people if he is acting as a priest/minister/rabbi/imam/etc. And if he’s one, he doesn’t need to have a business to do so—he can marry people for fun in his spare time, if he wishes.
Rights come in pairs with duties. If you want to give a gay couple the right to be wed, it means that somebody has a duty to marry them. City officials have such a duty and that’s fine. The question is whether priests have a duty to marry them. And it’s a person who does marriage rite, not an organization.
Take a look at the distribution of abortion clinics in the southern United States
That’s not really comparable. To conduct abortions you need to be a licensed MD, have a clinic, etc. etc. To marry people you need nothing.
The question is whether priests have a duty to marry them.
And no one is suggesting that they do or should. If you are a priest and I go to you and say “hey, you’re a priest, marry me” you are not under the slightest obligation to comply. You are, I think, entirely within your rights to say that I’m not religious enough or that you think the marriage I propose to make is unwise. I’m not even sure I have any recourse if you won’t marry me because you don’t like the colour of my skin.
But if you are running a commercial wedding business and I go to you and say “hey, you run this business, marry me” you are not supposed to discriminate on the basis of those things. Religious establishments get all kinds of special dispensations to do things their own way, but commercial businesses have legal obligations to treat customers equally in certain respects.
And I don’t see that any of this is, or should be, invalidated merely because the guy who does the weddings at Bob’s Wedding Shack happens to be entitled to do weddings because he’s an ordained religious minister rather than because he’s a judge or a notary or a marriage commissioner.
That’s not obvious to me. Let me explain.
My understanding of who can marry whom is hazy, but as far as I know in the US it works as follows. There are two classes of people who have the power to marry. The first class is government officials and if you want a civil (non-religious) marriage, you just go to the City Hall and get married there. No problems and we’re not talking about those people. The second class is priests/ministers/rabbis/imams/etc. of a recognized religion.
The thing is, Bob Smith as a plain-vanilla citizen has no right to marry anyone. Even is he opens a business and calls it Bob’s Wedding Shack, he still has no right to marry anyone. He can only marry people if he is acting as a priest/minister/rabbi/imam/etc. And if he’s one, he doesn’t need to have a business to do so—he can marry people for fun in his spare time, if he wishes.
Rights come in pairs with duties. If you want to give a gay couple the right to be wed, it means that somebody has a duty to marry them. City officials have such a duty and that’s fine. The question is whether priests have a duty to marry them. And it’s a person who does marriage rite, not an organization.
That’s not really comparable. To conduct abortions you need to be a licensed MD, have a clinic, etc. etc. To marry people you need nothing.
And no one is suggesting that they do or should. If you are a priest and I go to you and say “hey, you’re a priest, marry me” you are not under the slightest obligation to comply. You are, I think, entirely within your rights to say that I’m not religious enough or that you think the marriage I propose to make is unwise. I’m not even sure I have any recourse if you won’t marry me because you don’t like the colour of my skin.
But if you are running a commercial wedding business and I go to you and say “hey, you run this business, marry me” you are not supposed to discriminate on the basis of those things. Religious establishments get all kinds of special dispensations to do things their own way, but commercial businesses have legal obligations to treat customers equally in certain respects.
And I don’t see that any of this is, or should be, invalidated merely because the guy who does the weddings at Bob’s Wedding Shack happens to be entitled to do weddings because he’s an ordained religious minister rather than because he’s a judge or a notary or a marriage commissioner.