With the legalization of gay marriage in California, and the thousands of weddings, parties, and ceremonies yet to come, there exists a new dilemma in the area of religious rights versus civil rights.  Can religious beliefs be invoked as a cause of discrimination?  Throughout the U.S. there have been several cases in which the answer, according to the courts, is “No.”  

As an article on NPR calls it, it is an emerging “culture clash” of the growing generation of younger, more tolerant (or indifferent) liberals, and the traditional conservative population.  In the LA Times op-ed piece, “Will gay rights trample religious freedom?” Marc D. Stern, he lists recent court decisions that have sided with civil rights, over the increasingly marginalized religion-based discrimination the state has encountered:

“*A San Diego County fertility doctor was sued for refusing to perform artificial insemination for one partner of a lesbian couple for religious reasons. The doctor referred the patient to a colleague, promised there would be no extra cost and offered to care for her during her subsequent pregnancy. The case is now before the California Supreme Court, and justices seemed hostile to the doctor’s defense during oral arguments last month.
* Catholic Charities in Boston and San Francisco ended adoption services altogether rather than be compelled by anti-discrimination laws to place children with same-sex couples. In the Boston case, Catholic Charities was prepared to refer same-sex couples seeking to adopt to other providers, but that was not sufficient. Continue reading ‘The clash of “religious freedom” and “civil rights”’