The question is whether priests have a duty to marry them.
And no one is suggesting that they do or should. If you are a priest and I go to you and say “hey, you’re a priest, marry me” you are not under the slightest obligation to comply. You are, I think, entirely within your rights to say that I’m not religious enough or that you think the marriage I propose to make is unwise. I’m not even sure I have any recourse if you won’t marry me because you don’t like the colour of my skin.
But if you are running a commercial wedding business and I go to you and say “hey, you run this business, marry me” you are not supposed to discriminate on the basis of those things. Religious establishments get all kinds of special dispensations to do things their own way, but commercial businesses have legal obligations to treat customers equally in certain respects.
And I don’t see that any of this is, or should be, invalidated merely because the guy who does the weddings at Bob’s Wedding Shack happens to be entitled to do weddings because he’s an ordained religious minister rather than because he’s a judge or a notary or a marriage commissioner.
And no one is suggesting that they do or should. If you are a priest and I go to you and say “hey, you’re a priest, marry me” you are not under the slightest obligation to comply. You are, I think, entirely within your rights to say that I’m not religious enough or that you think the marriage I propose to make is unwise. I’m not even sure I have any recourse if you won’t marry me because you don’t like the colour of my skin.
But if you are running a commercial wedding business and I go to you and say “hey, you run this business, marry me” you are not supposed to discriminate on the basis of those things. Religious establishments get all kinds of special dispensations to do things their own way, but commercial businesses have legal obligations to treat customers equally in certain respects.
And I don’t see that any of this is, or should be, invalidated merely because the guy who does the weddings at Bob’s Wedding Shack happens to be entitled to do weddings because he’s an ordained religious minister rather than because he’s a judge or a notary or a marriage commissioner.