After the Supremes legalized gay marriage (not full equal rights, mind you, just marriage), conservative Christian right-tards got all confused and started bitching about how this was somehow an assault on their First Amendment rights of religious freedom and free speech.
Let me tell you something -- all these southern AG's and pinhead county clerks and Bible-beating blockheads at various bakeries, hardware stores and pizza parlors have it all wrong. The law impacts civil servants and public places. It does not dictate what churches must do. Your precious religious "rights" are still right there where you left them. A virulently homophobic preacher can still refuse to perform a gay marriage at his church without fear of consequence. (But really, who except for a very few devout crazoids would want to be married by such an asshole in the first place?) A county clerk, however, must issue the license and the judge or the justice of the peace must perform the civil ceremony. Their personal, private religious beliefs are immaterial and simply do not trump the law, and they could be held legally liable for failure to follow the law. Similarly, a retail business owner operates a public establishment, not a church, not a club. Refusal to serve the public -- all of the public -- could easily be found to be illegal discrimination.
We are all welcome to our individual religious beliefs, or lack thereof, but religious "freedom" does not mean we live in a theocracy. And it does not mean you can break the law in the service of your religion.
This seems an opportune time to remind everyone of a timeless truth:
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