Mrebo said:
It should be respected when people sincerely advocate for positions based on their religious views, including advocating for laws.
So in your opinion it should be respected if a Muslim were to advocate for laws requiring women to completely cover themselves in public or if a Jewish person were advocate for laws banning the eating of pork products?
It is a good question. I draw a distinction between laws that outlaw a personal activity (like women being uncovered/people eating pork/people 'practicing' homosexuality) and laws that operate through a government program (like marriage/health insurance contraception requirement/sex education in schools). The latter category requires value judgments. The first category seeks to oppress personal activity. I don't think oppression is respectable simply because it is religiously motivated.* Many people feel not including homosexual relationships under marriage is itself oppressive. This makes total sense if one sees no difference between gay and straight relationships. The issue is that for many religious people, there is a substantive difference, and at least in the context of the government program of marriage, they cannot in good conscience sanction the relationships as equals. If this is as hateful as anti-miscegenation laws, then that is an indictment against the bible insofar as we read it as declaring homosexual relations sinful.
Some Christians take the position that legal marriage doesn't mean that much and broadly permissive rules are not a sign of approval.
*Going back to the oppression of personal activity idea, things like drug laws can pose a problem as many people would oppress that activity for a variety of moral and perhaps religious reasons....yet so many are okay with that kind of oppression. Maybe absolute consistency of principle is not desirable?
I continue to be disappointed at the lack of sex-appeal in this thread, though I blame myself just as much. Isn't there something other than gay marriage? Ooh, a game! Would you think differently of the person above you if you found out (s)he were gay (video link just for fun)?