Supreme Court’s Big Gay Pandora’s Box - By Michael Tomasky

The idea that we should make gay marriage the law of the land and yet refuse to force businesses to follow that law is unjust and absurd.

Everybody’s up in arms about Mike Pence, Mike Pence, Mike Pence. My arms are up too. In fact I have anti-Pence cred going way back, to his chairmanship while in the House of the Republican Study Group, which played a key role in dragging the whole House GOP caucus hard to starboard. Indeed he was a protean figure in the lower chamber, a man ahead of his time, in whose breast dwelt deeply reactionary tendencies driven both by fiscal malevolence and alleged Biblical prophecy. There weren’t nearly as many of those in his day, so he was worth noticing, and to longtime Pence students, this law he’s signed is as unsurprising as a thing can be.

But I suggest to you, friends and comrades, that we also concern ourselves with the Supreme Court here. The High Court started all this, with the Hobby Lobby decision, and it’s the court that is steering us into some potentially dark and dangerous waters here.

Consider this. As we all know, the court is set to release its decision on same-sex marriage, probably at the end of its term in June. Virtually everyone thinks that a five-justice majority is going to uphold a federal right for same-sexers to marry. That would consist, of course, of the court’s four liberals plus Anthony Kennedy.

Okay, that’s great, if it happens. But remember: This is the same court that just said that it is okay, on the basis of religious conscience, for businesses to discriminate against gay people and refuse to photograph or cater or be-flower their wedding ceremonies. (The court actually ruled that privately held corporations could discriminate, but I guess since corporations are people, the various red-state legislatures have extended the principle to smaller enterprises.) So if the court rules for same-sex marriage this June, it will have said, in the space of exactly one year: Same-sex marriage is the law of the land, but refusing to honor same-sex marriage is the law of the land, too!

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/01/supreme-court-s-big-gay-pandora-s-box.html