I gave the MLive/Grand Rapids Press article covering Michigan State Rep. Cindy Gamrat’s proposed legislation some very serious thought. And I concluded the following:
Michigan State Rep. Gamrat said, “Now, more than ever, Christians and those who do not embrace the homosexual lifestyle will need protections, legally and also from being forced to violate their deeply held convictions as clearly outlined in our First Amendment.”
Have you ever noticed that in saying this, Gamrat and people like her, describing “Christians,” always assume that all gay people are atheists, or Jewish, or Muslim, or agnostic, or otherwise “not Christian”?
This is not true. There are many gay Christians who, because they are gay, do not embrace the heterosexual lifestyle (to use wording similar to Gamrat’s) for their own lives, but who are every bit as Christian as any straight Christian.
But here are the most important things to remember:
1) Gay legislators have never proposed legislation preventing straight people from marrying.
2) Gay legislators have never proposed legislation giving gay judges and gay government clerks the ability to refuse to marry or grant marriage licenses to straight couples.
3) Gay government clerks and gay judges have never tried to refuse to provide marriage licenses or refuse to marry straight couples, even though these gay clerks and gay judges do not “embrace the heterosexual lifestyle” for their own lives.
4) No gay person has tried to refuse to do the basic requirements of his/her public sector job and still try to keep his or her job.
5) To Gamrat and her ilk, the First Amendment and its protection of freedom of religion only applies to heterosexuals. According to Gamrat, violating the religious convictions of heterosexuals is not OK, but violating the religious convictions of homosexuals is fine and dandy.
It is very simple: Allowing a judge or clerk to refuse to issue a perfectly legal marriage license or to perform a legal marriage is a violation of my deeply held religious belief that people should follow laws and do their jobs.
In addition, it is clear that Gamrat and others like her do not understand the meaning of the word “equal,” as in “all men are created equal,” a quote from the United States Declaration of Independence, or as used in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
I am appalled that my tax dollars are paying the salaries of Gamrat and others like her, who do not believe in fair and equal application of the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom or the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause, which says, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Bottom line:
Neither the First nor 14th Amendment includes the language “except for gay citizens or gay persons,” a disclaimer that Gamrat and others like her so fervently wish they did.
Signed,
A gay Presbyterian