Religion & Law

Let us all please stop speaking of legal non-recognition as a "ban" or as "forbidding" something. No limits are now placed on homosexual freedom to marry, in that same-sex unions are already completely legal everywhere in America. Like almost all other friendships, they are simply ignored by the state, and the burden of proof weighs upon those who advocate government registration and regulation of them. 

Getting and staying married to someone of one?s own sex is not punishable conduct in any modern jurisdiction, as far as I can discover. True, homosexual sex acts were traditionally penalized, and that perhaps amounted to a kind of indirect prohibition on marriage, but even then religious or non-religious marriage vows were not themselves necessarily sanctioned. In any event, courts or legislatures throughout the developed world have largely eliminated prohibitions on such sex acts and have not replaced them with legal duties not to make religious or other vows and live together as married.Thus lack of legal recognition of gay marriage does not in any way limit conduct, as do ordinary legal prohibitions. (Indeed, it is marriage recognition that limits future behavioral freedom: Going through another marriage ceremony now becomes punishable as bigamy; having sex with someone else may become adultery; divorce may involve onerous reporting to the state; and the like.)