Helene Slessarev-Jamir (Claremont Lincoln University School of Theology) has posted Religious Conservatives’ Success in Constructing Gay Marriage as a Threat to Religious Liberties. Rather than posting the abstract, which you can see simply by clicking on the link, it may be more helpful to post some selections from this short but intensely felt paper. Those selections follow.
In this country, an exclusivist, patriarchal construction of religion has positioned itself as the principal crusader against the legalization of gay marriage by essentially claiming the gays and lesbians are not created in God’s image. Yet, the role of religion in the on-going debate is complexified by the gradual emergence of alternate, inclusive religious voices that publicly support gay marriage . . . .
Conservative religious strategists have won their campaigns against marriage equality by raising the specter of possible infringements against the religious liberties of those families, individuals, and institutions that oppose gay marriage were state governments to grant legal status to gay marriage. In the US, the defense of heterosexual couples’ religious liberties has become the principal trope in the campaigns against the right to same sex marriage, thereby legitimating the defense of traditional marriage by claiming that it is the embodiment of an ideal that many Americans perceive as sacrosanct. Thus, a vote to maintain discriminatory laws against same sex couples by denying them the right to marry is effectively recast as a patriotic defense of American liberty and freedom of belief, both of which are regarded as sacred values rooted in this nation’s founding principles . . . .