Over at Phi Beta Cons, David French has a must-read post on “Banned in Boston,” Maggie Gallagher’s important new piece on the conflict between same-sex marriage and religious liberty. Drawing on his experience with FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), French shows how universities are a proving ground for an assault on religious liberty that will likely be fully enabled at the state level by same-sex marriage. It begins to look as though legalized same-sex marriage could be the functional equivalent of putting a hard-left, speech-code-loving college faculty and administration in charge of religious liberty in your state. Read French’s post and witness the future in the present.
Powerful as French’s account is, we can find equally striking examples of what Gallagher is worried about in Europe. In January, Paul Belien at The Brussels Journal posted on the fate of conscience exemptions in Europe for same-sex marriage, abortion, and other such issues: “Conscience, How Dost Thou Afflict Me!” In “Dispatch From the Eurabian Front: Poles vs Gays vs Muslims,” Belien describes EU moves to sanction Poland Latvia and Estonia for defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. And “European Parliament Backs Gay Marriage,” reports on a symbolic resolution. Someday, one guesses, it could become mandatory. In any case, it’s clear that conflicts over same-sex marriage in Europe foreshadow the sort of problems outlined by Gallagher.
As if these posts weren’t chilling enough, have a look at the marriage debate site
the latest from Anthony Picarello, President and General Counsel of the Beckett Fund. Picarello gives some sense of the massive boost that formal same-sex marriage will give to the ability of the sort of folks described by French and Belien to take legal action against the traditionally religious.