Last week’s Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage prompted some Christians to express alarm, even fear, that their religious freedom is being eroded.
I believe their fear stems in part from their failure to make the critical distinction between the freedom to hold personal religious beliefs and the freedom to impose those beliefs on others.
American democracy lives by the Constitution. What the majority of the Court ruled is that denying marital rights to people because of their sexual orientation is unconstitutional.
That decision takes no freedom from anyone. It extends a specific freedom to everyone.
Certainly people can disagree with the decision. Four of the nine justices did. At the same time they and everyone else who disagreed with the decision must accept the ruling. That is how democracy works.
In the future people who don’t believe same-sex marriage is Constitutional can try to make a legal case against it in the hope of getting a different ruling by the Supreme Court.
But they need to understand that they will fail in their efforts if they expect any court to make a different decision because of what they believe the Bible says or what they believe God wants.
In a democracy the Constitution has the final word. We are a nation ruled by laws whose legal validity must be judged by the principles of that Constitution.
In that regard this decision by the Court may help to reassert the historical fact that the United States was not founded as a Christian nation and is not now.
Whatever influences led to the writing of the Constitution there is nothing in it that would give any American a reason to believe the U.S. is a Christian nation, or even a religious one.
A document that doesn’t mention the name of God or makes no reference to God cannot be rationally interpreted to mean it was founded on religious beliefs or principles. Instead, our country was founded on basic, universal human rights that transcend all religions.
I suspect many of our founders believed such rights were ordained by God to govern human affairs, but that is different from saying they intended the government they were creating to be “religious.”
At the same time, because our founders were not perfect people we have struggled as a nation ever since to ensure that those rights get extended to every American. This latest Supreme Court decision was another step in that direction.
Theocracies are governments ruled by religious leaders. In America we call that a church or a synagogue or a mosque. But America is not a church, a synagogue, or a mosque. It is a secular democracy and must stay that way for all religious and non-religious people alike to remain free to follow their conscience.
That is why the people who fear they are losing their religious freedom because of the Supreme Court decision may be unwittingly undermining the very freedom they think they are losing.
Had they won the case against same-sex marriage they would have succeeded in moving our nation closer to a theocracy while chipping away at equal protection under the law for everyone that lies at the heart of what genuine American democracy is all about.
I am very glad they lost and the country won.
linnposts.com 
Jan, thanks for this clear, well reasoned analysis of the Court’s decision. No need to say more. Cheerz!
That makes writing it worth it, Gene. Thanks.
This could not be stated any better. It is a rational, reasoned explanation of what our constitution means and why religion must not infringe on the rights guaranteed by it.
Coming from someone who is as thoughtful on issues as you are, Bill, what you said is as good an affirmation as I can get.
If I remember my history correctly, 9 of the original 13 colonies started out as colonies with specified religions. Persecution of non-[fill in the blank] was pretty common in these 9. Massachusetts, for example, hung a Quaker woman for coming back into the state after she’d been expelled. In addition, Native Americans suffered greatly under church-ordained discrimination. The 4 mid-Atlantic colonies, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware(I believe…could have been Rhode Island) and New York were not so doctrinaire. The first 3 were established by Quakers, but left without an “official” religion. John Penn wrote that he wanted the charter for Pennsylvania to be so strong that even he could not bend it to his own advantage. New York changed hands from the Dutch to the English & as a practical matter could not impose a state religion…the Dutch (who got there first) were primarily Catholic. The English (who took over) were Church of England. The religious unrest and persecution of Native Americans were much reduced in the colonies without an official religion.
In addition from the more tolerant conditions in the mid-Atlantic colonies (which probably were the model for separation of church & state), New York raises a particular difficulty relevant to the idea of “We can’t do ______ (fill in the blank here – Gay marriage, not persecuting Islam, etc.) because we’re Christian.” As New York discovered as it changed hands from Catholic to Protestant, figuring out which set of standards to enforce was not only impractical, but impossible.
So if one asserts that we are “a Christian nation,” it seems to me that the only possible answer is another question: “To which version of Christianity are you referring?”
AMEN again. Well spoken. And Thanks, Charlie for our excellent background info. I have reached the limit of my patience with the “Christian Nation” baloney.
“Baloney” is a great word, Wally.
Well said Jan.
Excellent blog article, Jan. It is such hard work to protect the freedoms of all when all of us are biased by our own perceptions of right and wrong, good and bad. You make it clear that imposing one set of religious beliefs on all citizens takes away one of our most fundamental human rights, the freedom to choose our own religious path.
It is a right everyone should want to protect, but it seems many who profess to be the most religious act in ways that undercut it.