What Marriage Equality Won't Do

Jason Kuznicki thrashes Eugene Volokh for worrying that marriage equality will infringe on religious freedom:

Yes, in 1983 Bob Jones University was forced to allow students to date interracially, on pain of losing its tax exemption, at which time it opted to keep the ban and lose the exemption. That case was highly unusual, as the IRS itself admits. And it’s a fairly tenuous analogy for three reasons. First, students at a university aren’t clearly analogous to congregants at a church. Second, being compelled to abandon restrictions on dating isn’t clearly analogous to being compelled to take an active part in performing a marriage. And third, certain churches still refuse to perform interracial marriages to this very day.

Yes, these churches are universally thought to be obnoxious, repulsive groups, and they deserve it. But when they run afoul of the law, it’s usually because of their violence, and never because blacks or Jews can’t get married within them. Volokh ought to know this, and to appreciate that the strict scrutiny given to laws abridging religious freedom means that we’re nowhere near seeing lawsuits against Presbyterians for declining to perform same-sex marriages.