The Inalienable Right To Wedding Photography

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Jennifer Roback Morse on the collateral damage of same-sex marriage. She cites the end of Catholic Charities of Boston's adoption services, Methodists losing tax-exemption in New Jersey, Mennonites thinking of leaving Quebec rather than yield to a state command they teach about homosexuality in their schools, and a photographer in New Mexico hauled up before a state Human Rights Commission (I didn't even know NM was a Canadian province!) for declining to photograph a commitment ceremony. Morse will spot you the Catholics --everybody hates them-- and even the Methodists, against whom there are some grievances, so who cares about their rights?

But the Mennonites? These are the most inoffensive people on the planet. They have been pacifists for centuries. Their continued existence here in North America is a testimony to the strength of our ideals of religious tolerance and pluralism, in all the best senses of those terms. But now, in the name of equality of same-sex couples, the Mennonites are being driven out of Quebec.

Perhaps you think people have a natural civil right to marry the person of their choosing. But can you really force yourself to believe that wedding photography is a civil right?

Maybe you believe that same-sex couples are entitled to have children, somehow. But is any doctor they might encounter required to inseminate them?

Conclusion:

Advocates of same-sex “marriage” insist that theirs is a modest reform: a mere expansion of marriage to include people currently excluded. But the price of same-sex “marriage” is a reduction in tolerance for everyone else, and an expansion of the power of the state.

A thought experiment posed by a friend a few days ago: Say two widows commit to live together for the the purpose of sharing expenses and companionship and being able to leave their worldly goods to one another (their relationship is not sexual). Or a father and daughter or father and son wish to do the same. Should they also be allowed to marry? If not, why not?