The Religious Left fights back
by digby
Some of the most creative progressive organizing these days is happening in North Carolina. We’ve all heard about Moral Mondays and the leadership role assumed by the liberal Christian churches in taking to the streets on social justice issues. Now the liberal clergy is taking to the courts. And it’s a very clever strategy.
My piece at Salon today reviews the Manhattan Declaration, the right wing Christian and Catholic manifesto from 2009 which started the ball rolling on the new “religious liberty” argument that they can never be free as long as they are not allowed to discriminate. (More or less.)
This … is going to force them to confront their own argument head on:
In a novel legal attack on a state’s same-sex marriage ban, a liberal Protestant denomination on Monday filed a lawsuit arguing that North Carolina is unconstitutionally restricting religious freedom by barring clergy members from blessing gay and lesbian couples.
The denomination argues that a North Carolina law criminalizing the religious solemnization of weddings without a state-issued marriage license violates the First Amendment. Mr. Clark said that North Carolina allows clergy members to bless same-sex couples married in other states, but otherwise bars them from performing “religious blessings and marriage rites” for same-sex couples, and that “if they perform a religious blessing ceremony of a same-sex couple in their church, they are subject to prosecution and civil judgments.”
You mean to say that Christian clergy who support gay marriage believe they have a right to exercise their religious freedom too? Well now, that’s a conundrum, isn’t it? After all, nobody has ever said that conservative Christians should be compelled to go against their beliefs and legally marry gay couples. But these laws are very definitely telling these liberal Christians that they cannot. Indeed, in North Carolina they criminalized it, holding clergy legally liable for performing the ceremonies.
Surprisingly, the North Carolina Values Coalition did not step up to defend the religious freedom of these Christian Clergy. Quite the opposite, in fact. They attacked their religious belief: read on
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