Who Knows Michelle Shocked?

[SiblingRevelry]

My problem with Michelle Shocked is this: She lied about the law.

Even if gay marriage is legal tomorrow in all 50 states, NO minister (as in NONE, ZERO, ZIP, NADA) will have to perform a gay marriage if he/she doesn't want to.

Period.

It is a LIE to say otherwise.

After all, it's perfectly legal for a minister to decline to marry an interracial heterosexual couple. Of course, that's likely to get the minister some bad publicity, but it's not illegal to tell the couple no. I think that's happened within the last year, even.

The Catholic church regularly tells heterosexual couples it won't marry them because they're living together, one party is divorced and hasn't had the marriage annulled, or there's some other impediment to the marriage. I remember a couple of decades back, a Catholic priest took a lot of heat for refusing to marry a paraplegic man to a woman, because he wasn't going to be able to produce children. It was an obnoxious decision, but it certainly wasn't illegal.

You can be against gay marriage, but PLEASE, do not lie about the implications of same in the law. Preachers are not going to be forced to marry anyone they don't want to.

N.B. This does not mean, if you hold a government office that involves issuing marriage licenses, that you're going to be able to get out of issuing licenses for otherwise legally-qualified people. You're working for the government, you are a representative of the government, and if you're intransigent about it, you'll likely lose your job. I wonder how many people quit or gutted it up after 1967 when the Supreme Court said that interracial couples could get married in every state in the Union?

(I'm also reminded in the slavery-owning South, African-American slave couples could not get legally married because they were property. It was only with emancipation that their marriages became legal. I have to wonder how many county registers gritted their teeth as former property came through and got licenses to marry?)

As for Michelle Shocked, I saw her once in Kerrville, Texas, back in the early 90s and hadn't thought or heard about her for years. As far as I'm concerned, lying about the implications of the law is a bad witness for Jesus. Bad, Michelle, bad.